Wednesday 22 December 2010

Advent calendar day 22 #4 Andre Agassi

We now come to number 4 in our count down to the greatest player of all time.

image found here
4th Best Player of all time

Andre Agassi

Grand Slams won - 8
Grand Slam Finals lost - 7
Overall amount of singles titles won - 64
Overall Match Winning percentage - 77.44% (762-222)                                         
Top rank - 1                                                                                    

We have the great Andre Agassi, well known across the globe. He won 8 of 15 Grand Slam Finals. He is one of seven people in the history of tennis to complete a career Grand Slam, winning his first at the 1992 Wimbledon, then the 1994 US open, next the 1995 Australian Open and he completed the career Grand Slam at the 1999 French Open. He didn't only do the career Grand Slam but completed the career golden Grand Slam, which means he has won all Grand Slams and an olympic gold, he is one of 2 players in the history of tennis to do this and was the first. He won the olympic gold in singles in 1996. Once more he has gone better than even the Golden Grand Slam, having also completed the career super slam. This means you have done the Golden Grand Slam but have also won an ATP World Tour Finals title, which he did only once, in 1990, Agassi is currently the only player to have done this but 2 players only need one of the remaining components to finish the career super slam. His 4 Australian Open titles is a joint record but he holds the record for the most consecutive match wins at the Australian Open, of 26. He played in 14 ATP World Tour Finals and lost in the Semi-Finals twice, was runner-up three times and won the title once. Andre Agassi was world number 1 for 32 weeks in 1995 and 1996, 55 weeks in 1999 and 2000 as well as another 14 weeks in 2003, at this time he was 33 years and 4 months which made him the oldest number one in open era. All these make a total of 101 weeks as number 1 in his career, including one year end number 1 in 1999. In this year he made the final of the last 3 Grand Slams and won 2. He would win the Australian Open next year, making him the first person since 1969, at the beginning of open era, to be in four consecutive Grand Slam Finals. In 1999 he also won 5 of 19 tournaments, had a winning record of 63-14 and lost in the final of the ATP World Tour Finals. Andre Agassi used to have been the player who had won the most ATP Masters 1000 titles, with 17, but recently this was over taken by Rafael Nadal, who now has 18. In 1995 he won a career best 7 tournaments and also had his best win record in his career, with 73-9. 1997 was a year, which Agassi has become infamous for. A wrist injury from the past came back and later he failed a drug test, which the ATP passed as a warning because he said his friend had spiked his drink but in his autobiography he admitted to taking crystal meth, after his friend convinced him. In 2006 at Wimbledon he announced retirement for the end of the year, due to many injuries, such as back, ankle and leg injuries. At the US open later that year, he made a retirement speech, after losing in the third round to Benjamin Becker. In the end injury hindered his performance for a lot of his time on the tour. Agassi was a natural player from the beginning and early in his career he was successful everywhere, except at Grand Slams. At the end of his first year on tour, at the age of 16, he was world number 91. Agassi was famously a base line player and had one of the best ever return of serve. In 1994 Agassi started charity for young people. In the future he would make more charities. To this day he works hard to raise money for charity and has done many exhibition matches for charity. 

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