Andre Agassi might have only won eight Grand Slam titles, but he remains one of the most talented players to ever grace a tennis court.
The American player might not be considered in the same bracket as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic when it comes to major honours, but for popularity with fans, he’s right up there.
Agassi is a legendary figure of the sport of tennis, and had Pete Sampras not lived in the same sporting era, he’d have won many more Grand Slam titles.
Darren Cahill is a man who knows Agassi very well, having coached him, and he’s recalled a particular time when the American came up against a young Andy Roddick.
Photo by Cynthia Lum/Getty ImagesCahill shares what Agassi told him about Roddick
This story is quite amusing and showcases how Agassi kept himself ready to play against the tour’s younger players, even when his career was drawing to a close.
The game came on a hard surface in San Jose, and Agassi absolutely thrashed Roddick, yet he’d called it before the game.
Roddick remembers it well, and on the Served podcast, the conversation turned towards the beatdown for the American in 2002, and it went as follows:
Cahill: “So, the first six weeks that I spent with Andre, I remember he played you (Roddick) in one of those tournaments as well and San Jose. So I just started in 2002. We did a trial for six weeks. I didn’t tell him anything for six weeks.
“Basically, like asking questions. I got to know him. I tried to get a feel for how he saw the game.
“I have a great story about you. So clearly, he brought me in to give a bit of insight. Also about Lleyton Hewitt.
“So Lleyton was number one in the world at that point, and he figured that if he was ever going to win a major again, he would have to go through Hewitt at some stage. So he wanted to see tennis through his eyes.
“So we spent a lot of time talking about Lleyton, of course, but I have a story about you because I think we played in the San Jose quarter-finals.”
Roddick: “It was a beating. He beat me.”
Cahill: “When we talked about his first two opponents, we did a bit of game planning and talked about it. We wouldn’t go too deep.
“And then on the car ride to San Jose, it was a one-car ride, I brought up the conversation about you, and I said, ‘All right, we’ve got Andy Roddick now. Let’s talk it out in his game.’ He said, ‘It’s OK. I got this one covered.’
“And I said, really? There’s a lot to know about Andy. You play at him. I’m not sure if you’d lost to him, if you’d beaten him at that point or whatever. goes no, here, what’s going to happen. Andy’s gonna hit me with this cheesy little wide first of the match because he wants the other to get away with it. And I’m gonna step over there and I’m gonna thump this forehand a million miles an hour and scare the life out of him so he never hits that again through entire match and I want him hitting it down the middle of the court to my back because I don’t want to have to be broken open in the court, so he’s going then go down the middle on the deuce court every single time because he’s going to be scared of that cheesy wide serve.
“And then I’m going to get him in the point and hopefully find his backhand, and even sneak into the net a little bit. No, I got this one covered, so we’re good. And then it was like three and one.’
“This is how great and deep his mind is. He knew exactly how that match was going to play out.”
Andy Roddick vs Andre Agassi head-to-head
It’s a bit of a travesty that Roddick only managed to win one Grand Slam title in 2003 at the US Open.
He was extremely unlucky at Wimbledon and lost in three finals at that event, all to Roger Federer.
His record against Agassi was pretty abysmal, too, with Roddick winning just one of the pair’s six meetings across their careers.
Andre Agassi vs Andy Roddick h2h
Still, both players go down as fierce competitors who gave everything for their country and strived daily to be the very best that they could be.
Roddick is now a brilliant tennis pundit, whilst Agassi would be wise to stick with the media stuff as he delivered some brilliant analysis during the recent French Open.