Agassi Earns His VIctory - 網球

Agassi Earns His Victory
Saturday, June 28, 2003



The number two seed emerged triumphant in a three hour 13 minute struggle to
defeat Morocco's Younes El Aynaoui 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4) on Centre
Court and advance to the last 16 of the men's singles for the ninth time in
his career.

It was a tough contest for Agassi, but he would have expected nothing less.
Although he has now beaten El Aynaoui five straight times, he will not have
forgotten that his opponent played a 21-19 fifth set at the Australian Open
in a five-hour quarter-final epic against Andy Roddick. But, like today, he
lost that one too.

With his wife Steffi Graf watching from the members' box, Agassi started
brightly but he missed two break points in the fourth game that would have
put him in early command. He duly paid the penalty when, with the set at 5-5
on serve, El Aynaoui broke for a 6-5 lead on an Agassi backhand that was
called out by the umpire, Javier Moreno, when the baseline judge failed to act.

Though it was a decision Agassi did not like, he buckled down in the hot
sunshine and had another break point at exactly the same stage of the second
set, the fourth game. This too was missed but as the 31-year-old Moroccan
began to tire in the conditions Agassi broke in the 10th game to level the
match with one hour and 22 minutes played.

Only some valiant serving and heroic hustling by El Aynaoui stopped Agassi
running rampant in the third set and, in fact, the Moroccan missed a couple
of break points in the third game. Without further danger to either man,
the set moved to a tiebreak in which Agassi jumped into a 4-1 lead and
eventually won by seven points to four.

In the fourth set, the 33-year-old Agassi still looked the fresher of the
two but El Aynaoui refused to buckle to the world number one. He saved three
break points at 4-4 that would have left Agassi serving for the match but
when he had three set points on Agassi's serve in the 12th game, he
surrendered them meekly with some poor slicing. it went to a second
tiebreak, where the American secured the one mini-break to go ahead by
five points to four and serve out for the match.


Written by ROnald Atkin


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