Set, Game, Championship: Agassi

The summer of '92, the stage was set for the finals of Wimbledon. Match between Agassi and Ivanesevic. Being the young teen-to-be, I was totally taken in with the long haired, earring sporting, rebel Agassi. Sitting next to my grandmother on her bed, the rest of the day passed in a blur of intense praying, google-eyed look and unabashedly rooting for the person who singlehandedly managed to inculcate in me the love of tennis. I should perhaps confess here that I was more interested in the bad -boy look of Agassi, than in the poetry of his motion and the grace of his shots. Times change and so do hormones and things I had overlooked before came into sight like the way he returned a serve or the way he hit his shots. I didn't get inspired to play tennis, I was lousy in sports and still am. But that did not stop me from gaining inspiration from a bunch of men grunting and hitting a ball around. Agassi's comeback was amazing. He went from an obscure could have been to a legend in a span of five years. It is amazing to see the transformation in him. For a man who refused to play in Wimbledon because of its white rules, he waited to make it his comeback vehicle. In a lot of ways he awoke a rebel in me. Someone who wanted to wear pants all day and hang upside down on bars. I believe every person has this rebel streak in them. People are like fruits or maybe onions, they have a skin which they torture, get hurt, bruised, pinched experiment with and ultimately the skin is removed , revealing a much more stronger person which is the real version. The skin was just a show perhaps, a tough shell with which they would experiment with life till they realize they were searching for someone who was inside them all along.
Whoo.. NOTE TO SELF: Concentrate on topic at hand. Anyway, And so my love story with the legend grew. I had dreams about him and dreams about a dream team who would be so invincible that they would beat any mixed doubles. The greatest day of my life was perhaps when Agassi married Steffi Graf. Oh God, I couldn't stop grinning. I went around town singing. I was acting as if I had got married. I shall talk about my idol worshipping in another blog. But the point is, m dream team had arrived. I realise now that they technically haven't played any game together, but I often visualize them playing against each other, or maybe toget in a mixed doubles. Ooohlala. Agassi just announced his retirement. He will be hitting his last serve in the US open. Man will I miss him.