TENNIS/US Open: Few people gave Pete Sampras much chance of winning his valedictory grand slam in the US Open four years ago, notably Greg Rusedski who was particularly scathing after losing to the American in the third round. But Sampras proved everybody wrong and now Andre Agassi is attempting to do the same.
Agassi will retire after this year's tournament and the great and good gathered in the Arthur Ashe Stadium for the tournament's first night session, half expecting that the great man might fade into the night skies with more of a whimper than a bang. He had, after all, played in only two tournaments since losing to Rafael Nadal in the third round of Wimbledon and garnered just two wins. Nobody was expecting miracles.
But Agassi has always been a man of the New York night skies. The cheer that greeted him had the air crackling with electricity, and his internal conductors drew on the immense goodwill to lift him out of an almighty mid-contest crisis against Romania's Andrei Pavel. He was 4-0 down in the third set and seemingly slipping to the sort of defeat that has become all too common because of his chronic back problems.
Cortisone injections kept body and soul together last year when Agassi reached his sixth US Open final, losing an enthralling match against Roger Federer. It would have been a fitting climax to his illustrious career which has encompassed eight slam titles and in which he became only the fifth player to win all four majors. But he was not ready to quit.
On Monday, as midnight passed, the force was with Agassi. Pavel, suffering from a stomach upset - "I had a feeling I was going to explode in my pants," said the Romanian, which was a little too much detail - often outplayed him, but 23,000 New Yorkers willed their man to a 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-2 victory in three hours 30 minutes.
Agassi said: "Those first three sets could've gone either way. I had to pick it up at the end and I'm glad I did. I don't think I've ever played a match point where 20,000 people were just standing. That was really cool."
On court he thanked the crowd. "You guys have pulled me through so much in my life," he said. "To come out and get through a difficult one . . . I'm very proud of this day."
Next up is Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, the world number eight and runner-up in this year's Australian Open. And that may just be the end for Agassi.
Yesterday's play was delayed by over three hours due to rain.
In the first big upset of the tournament, number three Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia was defeated with alarming ease by Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, 6-3 6-3 6-3.
Other seeds to fall were Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia, who lost to Russian Mikhail Youzhny in straight sets, and number 24 Jose Acasuso of Argentina, who was outlasted in five sets by Thailand's Paradorn Srichaphan.
In the women's singles fourth seed Elena Dementieva of Russia got past American Laura Granville 6-1 6-4, but sixth-seeded compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 champion, needed a little more work to progress.
She narrowly avoided a repeat of her opening-day exit last year when she took a little over two hours to overcome the challenge of Sandra Kloesel of Germany, 6-2 2-6 6-3.
