"Image is Everything"

Back in the 1980's and early 1990's, rising tennis superstar Andre Agassi, then with a full head of hair and a colorful and sexy image, was a magnet for attention of all sorts, and he obviously received many willing and even eager sponsors. Among these were Canon, who wanted to promote their superior level of cameras, and who made Agassi do all sorts of things, showing him in action and then freezing the picture, with the accompaniment of a kind of clicking sound that a camera might make, showing him frozen in a picture forever. After several of these, the "rebel, rebel" Andre Agassi would smile at the camera and proclaim that, indeed, "Image is everything!"

It came to be ironic, because for a long time, Agassi was known as a tennis player more focused on his image off the court, then what he did on the court. He was a very talented tennis player, with perhaps more natural tennis ability than anyone else, but he always seemed to fall short of glory. This was never more obvious than when he engaged in one of the epic clashes against Pete Sampras, who, if anything, was the complete opposite: a guy who seemed to be bland and boring in terms of image, dressing without any flash or pizzazz at all, but getting the job done, time after time, on the court. The British initially did not like him and called him "gloomy", but he ended up winning Wimbledon in Britain seven times, a modern record that even the great Roger Federer has not yet equaled, let alone surpassed. He won those seven titles, and added seven others (five US Open and two Australian Open championships, respectively) to establish a record fourteen Grand Slam men's titles. He also finished with the number one ranking for six consecutive years, from 1993 until 1998, also a record that has yet to be surpassed by anyone (again including the great Federer). I personally believe that Federer was better overall, and although Sampras was not my personal favorite tennis player, you certainly have to give the man his due. Although many of his records fell to Federer, and although Federer's list of accomplishments may be greater or perceived as better overall, he was not able to overtake Sampras in every category. That's saying something.

Agassi was supposed to be like that, but he never quite reached that level. Now, mind you, this is not to say that he was not a great tennis player, or that his list of accomplishments on the court is somehow something to be scoffed at. Far from it, in fact. He ended up winning eight Grand Slam championships himself (not too shabby), and reached fifteen overall. He became only the fifth man ever to win the career Grand Slam (winning each of the different Grand Slams on each of the different surfaces), a record that Roger Federer and Rafel Nadal have both matched. He also become the first man to win the career "Golden Slam", winning all four major Grand Slams and the Olympic Gold Medal. He finished 1999 with the top ranking for men, finally ending Sampras's streak with a brilliant year, and if you combine all of the different times during his illustrious career that he reached the number one ranking, it amounts to just shy of two years overall, which places him quite high on the list of all time greats. He was the youngest man to ever reach the number two ranking at 18, and the oldest man to reach the number one ranking at 33. He won more majors than anyone in history at the time, a record that I believe still stands. In short, he enjoyed a storied career, and finished with some of the most incredible accomplishments of any tennis player, ever.

Yet, that early problem with his image was the one obstacle that he never really was to fully overcome. People expected him to just win, to sail to the top of the men's field and stay there for a good, long reign of the king of tennis. Yet, he kept losing his first Grand Slam appearances in the early nineties. He watched other men that seemed to come out of nowhere and win the top rankings, including Stefan Edburg, Jim Courier, and then Pete Sampras, who turned out to have considerable staying power of his own, as it turned out.

Agassi was able to break through, finally, by winning Wimbledon in 1992, but then he returned to his old form, and did not reach another major, let alone win another one, for over two years. Then he caught fire, winning two consecutive Grand Slams and reaching the umber one ranking for the first time in his career in 1995, staying there through much of the year. He faced a familiar opponent, Sampras, in the US Open Final, for what was in fact a battle for the number one ranking. Agassi lost, and pretty badly, and you could read the despair on his face. It was a loss, and a bad one, and he did not recover for over four years, with only one truly bright point between then and 1999, when he won the Olympic Gold Medal in the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Other than that, it was largely a disappointment. That was the early part of his career, and although he undeniably had enjoyed some great accomplishments, most people viewed him as an underachiever.

He managed to redefine himself to a great extent, breaking through with a miraculous run in the 1999 French Open, which he was finally able to win, after losing the first two appearances and after spotting his opponent in the 1999 Final, Andrei Medvedev, a two sets to nothing lead. Agassi came back from all odds to win, and he sank to his knees in tears after this match, glad just to reach such an opportunity again, long after many had written him off. From that point onwards, his career took an entirely different turn. He went to the Wimbledon Final a few weeks later, and although he again lost to Sampras, who by then seemed unbeatable on grass, he still seemed in relatively good spirits afterwards. He had a tremendous year the rest of the way, winning the US Open and culminating in the number one ranking. He hung onto it for over a year straight, and started off 2000 by winning the Australian Open for the second time. He did not repeat the feat of winning the year end top ranking, but he did win the Australian Open again in 2001, and a final time in 2003, by which point he was 33. He also made it to many Grand Slam Finals during that time, winning some and losing some, but he made it as far as the US Open Final in 2005 after a truly amazing run and some incredibly epic matches, eventually taking on red hot Roger Federer and seemingly having a chance to beat him midway through, until Federer was able to regain control and, eventually, turned the match into a rout. The next year, riddled with injuries, he decided to finally call it a career, and began what seemed to be an amazing run in the US Open, beating then young up and comer Marcos Baghdatis in a thriller. But it ended with him in tears, losing to, as he called it, "B. Becker of Germany" (no, not that B. Becker, this one was named Benjamin, and his list of accomplishments was considerably shorter than that other B. Becker). By then, he was viewed almost as an elder statesman of the game, and as a truly enlightened figure off the court, having opened up a school for disadvantaged kids in his native Las Vegas.

Ultimately, he proved to be more than merely about his "image", although some never really seemed to forgive him his lack of a work ethic or drive to win in those early years. This includes, most notably, Jimmy Connors, who went against the tide after Agassi won the French Open in 1999 by claiming that Agassi did not deserve to be mentioned "in the same breath" as other great tennis champions such as Sampras and himself (yes, he mentioned himself). Thus began a trend that would last literally until that final day of Agassi's career, when he made that last walk through the tunnel and into the locker room filled with other tennis stars who gave him a standing ovation – with one notable exception – Jimmy Connors. So, not everybody was won over, apparently.
Really, though, what does it matter that Jimmy Connors did not ever give Agassi his due. Maybe he was just bitter at having had his butt handed to him against the young and surging Agassi, he of the hair era, back in the late 1980's   The things that Agassi had accomplished, both on and off the court this time, were more than admirable, and he won the respect and admiration of many millions the world over. He had held himself in dignity, and showed a generosity of heart that he shared with his wife, another celebrity, but a considerably less flashy one this time – Steffi Graf. He wrote a beautiful book, an autobiography, that was inspiring and insightful to tennis fans (such as the one writing this piece). So, he had managed to finally change his trademark "image is everything" moniker that had haunted him earlier in his tennis career, even if a few people, apparently including Jimmy Connors, are not happy about it and still refuse to acknowledge this.