On Sunday 5 July 1992, a tearful and disbelieving Andre Agassi fell face down onto the turf of Centre Court. He had just won his first Grand Slam title, at a venue he had once scorned and boycotted by repelling the power serving of Goran Ivanisevic - what had been called “the fiercest delivery ever to appear at Wimbledon.”
At the age of 22 Agassi had won in some style, too, defeating three-time Wimbledon champions Boris Becker and John McEnroe in the quarter- and semi-finals (Becker in five rugged sets, McEnroe in three straight) before outlasting the Croatian Ivanisevic and his whizz-bang serve by a score of 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 in two hours 50 minutes. After struggling in the opening set to contain the Croatian’s serve, Agassi began to groove his return of serve, praised by McEnroe as “the best in the game”, only to be blown away in a fourth set which lasted just 18 minutes. The final set brought one moment of deep peril for the American, trailing 3-4 and facing break point.
Having survived that, Agassi realised the greatest crown in tennis could be his. The Ivanisevic serve, which delivered 37 aces in the final and a record of 206 in the tournament, began to malfunction under the pressure of the occasion and at match point down, he missed his first serve and closing in on Agassi’s waist-high return of the second serve, volleyed it tamely into the net.
In the newspaper USA Today, Tom Weir wrote: “London’s bookmakers once would have given better odds on the crown jewels someday hanging from an Agassi earring than for Wimbledon’s championship cup ever winding up in his hands”. Weir went on to describe how Agassi “held that symbol of tennis immortality as if it might turn to dust at any moment” and the new champion himself summed up the moment neatly, as ever: “If my career was over tomorrow, I had a lot more than I deserved. I had a lot more than I could ever ask for.”It was Agassi’s fourth Grand Slam final, having lost the first three, at the French and US Opens of 1990 and again at Roland Garros a year later. His first, and for what long appeared his only, Wimbledon appearance had come in 1987, when he lost in the first round. He opted out of a return for the next three years blaming, among other things, a dislike of Wimbledon’s insistence on competitors being attired in “predominantly white” clothing.
This from a man whose sponsors offered him an annual change of wardrobe – hot lime, volcano pink, ecclesiastical purple, with the wearer frequently painting the nail of his little finger a matching colour. Agassi’s dress sense and attitude were violently derided by the American media, with descriptions such as “cheap hustler”, showboating nincompoop” and “infantile twerp”.
Finally, the penny dropped. Agassi realised, as Tom Weir pointed out: “If you don’t play Wimbledon, well, you don’t really play tennis.” He returned for the 1991 Championships, losing in a five-set quarter-final to fellow American David Wheaton, his disappointment lessened by the enthusiasm of his welcome from the British public. Twelve months later that love affair was consummated, with the flamboyant American now converted from multi-coloured outfits to clothing which was not merely “predominantly white” but pristine white.
As I wrote in The Observer at the time, “Wimbledon 1992 was Agassi’s watershed. Doubters need only consider this fact: 48 hours after winning there the man who normally resembles the aftermath of a rather nasty accident in a paint factory was still strutting around in his all-whites at a press conference back home in Las Vegas.”
Finally, there is this wonderful statistic – the winner of the Ladies’ Singles Championship that year was a certain Steffi Graf, unlike Agassi claiming her 11th Grand Slam title. In 2001 they were married and to celebrate the official opening of the Centre Court roof in 2009 Mr and Mrs Agassi played in an exhibition foursomes. This year Andre is back as coaching advisor to Novak Djokovic. The love affair continues.
