It's Personal for This Trainer - 網球

July 31, 2005 latimes.com : Sports

It's Personal for This Trainer
Agassi works harder than ever after Paris setback so he doesn't have to
retire at 35.

By Jerry Crowe, Times Staff Writer

The bald truth, of course, is that the end of Andre Agassi's tennis career
is a lot closer than the shaggy-haired beginning.

So when Agassi pulled up lame at the French Open in May, suffering a sciatic
nerve injury while losing in the first round, he and his trainer/longtime
confidant had to ask themselves a difficult question: Was this the end of
the line?

They feared the worst.

"Either we were going to surface and rise above or we were just going to
be swept away," Gil Reyes, who has trained Agassi for 16 years, said
Saturday. "It was just that simple. Unfortunately, it was that dramatic
as well."

At 35, his contemporaries long retired, Agassi knows his days in the
sport are numbered, his exit just around the corner, if not right up
the street.

One false move could bring the rocking chair.

"We're more scared now than we've ever been," Reyes said after Agassi's
6-4, 6-2 victory over Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina in the semifinals
of the Mercedes-Benz Cup at UCLA's Los Angeles Tennis Center. "He
understands it: a 35-year-old athlete being asked to not only withstand
the rigors of tennis, but, let's face it, [a sport] being played a little
differently these days. These guys are coming up awfully big, awfully
strong, good athletes. And they've grown up watching guys like Andre
play and wanting to knock the cover off the ball. There are no more
gentlemanly rallies out there, so the toll it takes on the body is
different.

"So, of course we were afraid after the French. My biggest fear was
that a doctor would decide when Andre retired. That was a nightmare
to me. I've always wanted it to be on his terms. We still fantasize
about how to go out, still talk about it, and I had nightmares about
a doctor being the one who said, 'He's done.' "

Agassi must have too, because, according to Reyes, he was back in the
gym five days after flying home from Paris to Las Vegas. He returned
to the ATP Tour this week at UCLA, ran through a watered-down field and
today could join Jimmy Connors, Roy Emerson and Frank Parker as the
event's only four-time winners.

"I respect him more now, if that's possible, than I ever have," Reyes
said of Agassi, "because I know the doubt and the pain and the uncertainty
that were inside the four walls of that gym when we came back from Paris."

Because of the pain in Agassi's back, which was injected with cortisone,
Reyes said he had to eliminate about 60% of the player's regular exercise
routine.

"We could not end his career in the gym," the trainer said.

After a difficult first 10 days Agassi slowly responded and, according
to Reyes, "He did not miss one day in training. And he had every reason
to take a day or two off. For crying out loud, he's 35, he's paid his
dues, he's hurting. But the guy was in there every single morning, same
look in his eye, same trust in his eye, that he wants it, he wants it
bad. He's hungry right now, he's focused."

Credit Reyes, Agassi said.

"Gil is the reason why I've won more Slams after the age of 29 than I
did before," he said. "He's the reason why I'm still out there playing
this sport at a time in my life when I can really understand and
appreciate it.

"These last eight weeks were just another testament to that. We addressed
every question with purpose and got our answers."

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