At long last the career of Andre Agassi has come to an end. It’s hard to parallel careers from era to era, but as far as the metal racquet era goes, Andre was the poster boy. One could argue with great success that Andre was able to hammer down the final nail in the coffin for serve and volley tennis. His success with his ground strokes inspired an entire generation of baseline players that we are seeing now. The style of play we see today is straight baseline, which has led to Andre having such tremendous success in the final part of his career. He was pretty much playing all these kids who are trying to imitate was he had been doing before their voices had lowered. He was able to keep in better shape than any of the young upstarts and able to stay at the top of the game. Consistent success at the age that Andre is will be hard for anyone else to achieve. But I’m just saying what everyone else has already said. I’m gonna rock out one of my classy top fives, with my top five Andre Agassi matches.

1. Andre Agassi v James Blake (US Open 2005)
This match happened last year in the quarterfinals. It was such a great match that it made everyone else forget about Andre’s next match which was another five setter against Robby Ginepri. Blake and Andre had been the stories of the tourney and when they collided they more than delivered. It was an electric night, with tremendous tennis. Even though my man Blake went down, it’s still one of my favorite matches of all time.

2 & 3 Andre Agassi v. Pete Sampras 2001 (Quarterfinals) 2002 (Finals)
Poor Agassi lost both of these but they were instant classics. In 2001 Agassi didn’t lose a service game, but lost the match after losing three of the four tiebreakers. In 2002, it was a perfect ending for Pete Sampras. A perfect ending thanks Andre. Sampras was able to out duel the one person that had most rivaled him throughout his career. It was a great match with great emotion that had the crowd jumping sides like it was El Rio Grande (and before you go nuts ‘ese’, I’m Hispanic so I can make that joke).

4. Andre Agassi v Sebastian Grosjean (French Open)
This match was great for me because it showed me that anyone can crumble with pressure, even Andre. Long story short, Andre was dominating at the French Open wining the first set 6-1. President Bill Clinton showed up, and Agassi proceeded to lose the next three sets 6-1 6-1 6-3.

5. Andre Agassi v. Noam Okun Legg Mason Tennis Classic 2002
This was one match I got to see Andre live. My high school dubs partner scored some tickets and I got to see AA live with some prime seats. He spanked Okun 6-2 6-2, with his usual array of sick shots. He was smacking the ball that night and it was simply awesome.

Tennis is going to miss Andre Agassi but to be completely honest I’m glad that he is finally gone. Now the US fans can focus on more than just Andre. It’s time to move on and hopefully everyone can get a real grasp and appreciation for how good Roger Federer is; how much potential Rafael Nadal, at age 20, has; and the depth in Men’s tennis with a new generation of young players like Marcos Baghdatis, Andy Murray, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet that will be around for years to come.