One of those in the stands was Agassi's father, Mike, the former Iranian boxer who immigrated to the United States and hung a tennis ball over his infant son's crib in an attempt to give him a big hint about what sport lay in his future. With the right tool in his hands and no surplus of positive reinforcement, he found a way to muddle through, bringing his fans, friends and family repeatedly out of their seats by raising his level down the stretch as Pavel's inexorably dipped. Once I lay off, I sort of lose direction and penetration.'

'If I'm hitting it flat, and it's going on me and I'm not trusting it, I start to lay off. 'I don't play with a lot of spin,' Agassi said of his racket problem. 'I tell you, I think the loudest noise in the world is 23,000 quiet New Yorkers,' Agassi said in his post-match remarks.īut the crowd of 23,376, a record because of added seating in Ashe Stadium this year, did not stay quiet for long once Agassi changed rackets to alter his string tension and started playing more like, if never exactly like, the clean-hitting Agassi many of them have grown up watching. Agassi had to save a set point in a tiebreaker to avoid going down two sets to love, and he then had to rally from a 0-4 deficit in the third set. He's playing some of the best tennis this year.'Īgassi flirted with retirement on occasion against Pavel, another thirtysomething veteran with an occasionally aching back. 'Such a talent one of those guys you'd pay to go watch,' said Agassi of Baghdatis, whom he has never played. And he will be a clear underdog in his next match, where he will have to find a way to beat an opponent on the rise instead of an opponent on the decline who has lost more matches than he has won in 2006.Īgassi's second-round opponent will be Marcos Baghdatis, the bearded, eighth-seeded Cypriot who demonstrated plenty of Agassi-like showmanship as he reached this year's Australian Open final and, more recently, the semifinals of Wimbledon.

That sounds quite a bit more improbable than Agassi's run to last year's final. 'Six more,' Agassi added, referring to the six more victories he would need to win a third U.S. 'I want to be here real bad for the whole two weeks,' said the 36-year-old Agassi, who has announced that this will be the final tournament of his 21- year career. Agassi struggled when pushed wide by the 75th-ranked Pavel, struggled to chase down drop shots and often struggled to hit the sort of forceful returns off second serves that made him the most feared baseliner in the game for much of the last two decades.īut considering how little the unseeded Agassi has played this summer and how poorly he played in his last match - where he was stunned by the little-known Italian Andrea Stoppini in the opening round in Washington - this was a very respectable performance under late-night, even final-hour pressure.

Andre agassi us open 2006