Photo courtesy of michelle's Flickr page - Agassi vs Becker: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rustygrass/234955464/in/photolist-mLd5h-aqpbiG-aqpb1Y-aqpaKU-aqpaCs-aqpauN-aqmuiM-aqp9iQ-aqp9ab-aqmt7Z-aqmsS6-aqmp2T-aqmodM-aqmnGK-aqmnyM-aqmnpk-aqp2Zd-aqmmu2-aqmmkt-aqmm3F-aqp1zw-aqp1fh-aqp17Y-aqoZYL-aqmk8z-4eFZBV-ee6o4y-s69VdY-7oHrsb-ou66AH-ou5qxp-ou5Jiy-ou5Jbu-oLimze-4xRgdC-aqp4jh-aqmovp-47MyJH-fcLSqb-5QNsEQ-qqpDq-bMLBh4-ee7wKd-7BAjNb-cTdAv-ee1QYT-qt1phc-ee1R22-gG3WTD-8kDR1L
I saw this list, and was intrigued by it.
Yet, I have to admit that I also happen to disagree with it.
Why? Because I remember back in 1995, Andre Agassi was on top of the world. He had won the U.S. Open the prior year, and then followed that up by winning the Australian Open to begin 1995. He took the Indian Wells title as well, and for the first time in his career, he was ranked number one. Ahead of Pete Sampras, who was his long-time tormentor to that point.
Agassi had always been a very talented tennis player, and everyone seemed to feel it was just a matter of time before he fully emerged, and realized much of his potential. That would essentially meaning winning titles, and big titles, at that. Until this run in late 1994 and 1995, Agassi had been known more for his "Image is Everything" commercials off the court than anything that he had done on the tennis courts.
With the strong run, he ascended the rankings to hold the number one ranking for most of the year. He made it to the semifinals at Wimbledon, but narrowly missed making it to the final, where he would have met Sampras, losing instead to Boris Becker. But he managed to exact a measure of revenge at the U.S. Open, grinding out a tough win against Becker, and earning his spot in the final against Sampras.
This was the best rivalry in tennis, and these were the number one and number two ranked men in the sport at the time. The winner would likely keep the number one ranking to the end of the year, and be the ITF champion.
It was a cool day, and Agassi was working hard, trying to defeat his main rival, which he had managed to do in the Australian Open final earlier in the year. But he dropped the first set. Then dropped the second set.
Agassi rallied to win the third set, and jogged over to the side afterwards, showing through body language that he was good and ready to take this thing to the distance while the crowd roared.
Unfortunately, however, Agassi could not pull off the comeback, losing the fourth set, and the match. It almost guaranteed that he would also lose the number one ranking, which he did. Sampras rose to the top of the tennis world, and Agassi began a precipitous decline after losing that final. He got in trouble after failing a drug test, and sank to number 141 in the world in the rankings, even playing qualifying matches in the Grand Slams just to gain some confidence. He would recover, beginning with an emphasis on conditioning that led to a rebounding season in 1998, when he once again began to rank among the top players. Ultimately in 1999, he broke through and won the French Open, completing a career Grand Slam, and ascending near the top of the rankings. He would recapture the number one ranking in the summer of 1999, the year that would become the peak of his tennis career.
But the devastation of losing that particular final in 1995 seemed to derail Agassi's career for a long time, and it seemed that it might have effectively ended his potential as one of the elite players. Yes, he did recover, and achieved some wonderful things at a relatively late age. But in 1995, he was still fairly young, and should have been at the peak of his powers for several years yet.
The thing with Andre Agassi was that you could often tell when he was losing his confidence by his demeanor, and especially by his facial expressions. This was particularly true when he would lose to Sampras. You could just read it in his eyes. I remember him staring off after losing that 1995 U.S. Open Final.
I was not around to witness the Navratilova loss in 1976, and I have no doubt that it was devastating. But given her success, it seems that she was not nearly as devastated by this loss as Agassi was in 1995, yet the Agassi loss does not even make this list, which is a bit surprising.
Still, nonetheless, out of not just all of the matches in the U.S. Open that I saw, but perhaps all of the tennis matches that I saw, period, this match just might have been the most painful and crushing loss any tennis player suffered during my time as a tennis fan. Perhaps the only losses that have come close were Jana Novotná's 1993 defeat at Wimbledon, where she broke down in front of the entire crowd, Roger Federer's loss to Nadal in the 2009 Australian Open final, when he also broke down in tears after the hugely disappointing defeat. Finally, there were two this year. The first was the defeat of current world number one Novak Djokovic by Stan Wawrinka earlier this year at the French Open, which prevented him from achieved the career Grand Slam (and perhaps the calendar Grand Slam, as it turns out, although who knows if things would have been different had Djokovic won that one). Djokovic had never been able to get past Nadal until this year, but he finally managed it in the quarterfinals, and seemed destined to capture his first ever French Open and join the ranks of the true elites of the sport with the feat. The second was just a few days ago, when Serena Williams was denied a calendar Grand Slam when she was defeated by Italy's Vinci.
Those are the only matches that I can think of off the top of my head that were even candidates as more disappointing than Agassi's 1995 U.S. Open defeat to Sampras.
Ranking the Most Disappointing Losses in US Open History By Jake Curtis, Sep 9, 2015:
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