Agassi the magician survives Ancic
Agassi the magician survives Ancic
By Matthew Cronin
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Pulling yet another rabbit out of his hat, 1999 Roland-Garros Champion
Andre Agassi came back from two sets down and a break in the third set
to overcome the zoning teenager Mario Ancic of Croatia 5-7 1-6 6-4 6-2
7-5 in the second round on Wednesday.
Like he did last year when he came back from a 2-0 deficit against
France's Paul-Henri Mathieu and like he did in the '99 final against
Andrei Medvedev, Agassi fought gamely, kept his cool at key moments and
physically and mentally wore down his 19-year-old foe at the end.
"In tennis you have to finish off the match," Agassi said. "Something's
always going to change psychologically when you get closer to the finish
line. The question is how you handle it at that stage when you're on fire.
He missed a few first serves and I made a few good shots. I stepped up my
game a little and got into the match. That's what I needed."
The 33-year-old failed to serve out the first set at 5-4 and after that,
the 6-foot-4 Ancic began to dominate the contest with his huge first serve,
swing-from-the-hips groundies and rock solid volleys. He ran through Agassi
in the second set, broke to 2-0 in the third and even after Agassi broke
him back, pounded his way to a 3-2 lead by breaking Agassi again.
"He got off to a great start and earned himself a lead," Agassi said. "When
I didn't capitalize, he stepped it up even more. Before I knew it, I found
myself in a hole."
But the American stood strong and began to return extremely well at the
young Croat's feet, passing beautifully when given the opportunity and
serve intelligently enough not to give Ancic any more giant swipes at
his second serves.
"That's what Grand Slam tennis is all about," said the eight-time Grand
Slam champion Agassi. "Sometimes you have to find a way, dig deep and
come up with the goods."
Agassi rolled over a despondent Ancic and served for the contest at 5-3
in the fifth set, but double faulted on his first match point, missed a
makeable backhand on his second match point and then was broken when he
double faulted again to 5-4. At that point, the crowd began to go crazy,
performing a seemingly endless wave.
"The French fans are so enthusiastic and so emotional, they're so
connected to what's going on - I love playing in front of them," Agassi
said.
Ancic yelled in delight after lacing a backhand winner to even the match
at 5-5, but Agassi held to 6-5 and in the match's final game, the buff
Las Vegan forced the Croat into an unforced error on his fifth match point.
Agassi said the double faults didn't concern him and he had no jitters
of going down.
"At that stage, you're not fearing losing, you've already stared that
straight in the eye when you're down two sets and a break twice," Agassi
said. "All you're thinking about is putting together four good points in
the next game."
Agassi, who won the Australian Open in resounding fashion last fall, said
that winning five-setters early on in a tournament is no sure-fire recipe
that he will win the title. But he's sure hoping the victory over Ancic
got him over the hump.
"It's easy to look on paper and say, 'The most important ones are against
the best players in the semis, the finals,' but it's not always the case,"
he said. "I hope that the story is this is the one I needed to get through."
Agassi will play Belgium's Xavier Malisse in the third round, a five-set
winner over Austria's Stefan Koubek.
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