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Remembering Andre Agassi’s 1995 Summer Dominance and Decline
Published: July 16, 2014
The 25-year-old Agassi was a fearsome ball striker who had finally found the right blend of patience and percentages with coach Brad Gilbert’s baseline philosophy. He had combined his talent with hard work and intelligence, work ethic and purpose, and he had his sights set on ruling all of tennis for a long time.
He had won the 1994 U.S. Open and defeated rival and tennis king Pete Sampras in the 1995 Australian Open final. By the time he crossed the Atlantic in mid-April, he had captured the No. 1 ranking.
But what happened that summer was both triumph and tragedy, the kind of classic theater the Ancient Greeks revered, or, ironically, something that Agassi might have enjoyed at Broadway. It would be his high and low, defining a good portion of his career and changing the direction of tennis for the rest of the decade.
The Revenge
Agassi’s first real disappointment that year was losing in the French Open quarterfinals to Yevgeny Kafelnikov. One ill-fated lunge at a ball and he felt his hip flexor snap, according to his autobiograpy, Open. Could he have defeated clay king Thomas Muster in the semifinals? It would have been a Herculean task, but Agassi felt his career Grand Slam (He had also won Wimbledon in 1992) was there for the taking, expressing so in his book, p. 207:
As I leave Paris, I don’t feel defeated; I feel cheated. This was it, I just knew. My last chance. Never again will I be in Paris feeling so strong, so young. Never again will I inspire such fear in the locker room.
My golden opportunity to win all four slams is gone.
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