2005 Italian Open News
By Eleanor
Preston | May 06, 2005
 It’s
six years since Andre Agassi won his French Open
title and while not even the Las Vegan’s most
ardent supporters would place him amongst the favorites
for the 2005 Coupe de Mousquetaires, no-one could
fault his preparation for Roland Garros.
Yesterday he gave himself the chance of adding more finishing touches to his
clay-court game by reaching the semi-finals of the Rome Masters courtesy of a
6-3, 6-3 win over Dominik Hrbaty.
Having opted, as usual, to miss Monte Carlo, Agassi made the quarter-finals in
Houston before heading across the Atlantic to Rome and seems to be feeling more
and more
comfortable on the red dirt with every swing. There were certainly plenty of
those against the baseline-hugging Hrbaty, with one rally notching up 43 strokes
and several more with twenty-plus hits.
It was attritional stuff, with endless walloped exchanges punctuated with either
a big crosscourt forehand or a tired error and therefore not for those who glory
in the subtleties that the best clay-court tennis can offer. It may have been
less about the nuances of spin and tight angles than about the seemingly simple
aim of staying in the point until the ball stopped coming back, but
Agassi made the point afterwards that it takes all sorts of matches to provide
the ideal lead-in to a grand slam.
“I’ve had a nice variety of players,” said Agassi. “First
round, my opponent didn’t have a lot of power but he ran very well and
I needed to make sure I picked the right shot. The next match I had to play (Richard)
Gasquet, where you really had to hit the ball much bigger because if he had time
he was going to hurt you. Then against (Ivan) Ljubicic he was playing with so
much spin and we were having longer points. Today it was a different type of
player altogether with different conditions. To get that variety has been a nice
blessing.”
Hrbaty did no play anywhere near as well as he did against Tim Henman in the
third round but he still did plenty to test Agassi despite the fact that Agassi
won the first eight points in the kind of hurry that usually heralds the start
of a demolition. Hrbaty broke straight back from 40-0 up on the Agassi serve
in the second game though, thereby setting the tone.
Though Agassi won that set with the help of a second break in the seventh game,
things were never going to be straightforward against such a difficult opponent.
Hrbaty very nearly derailed Agassi in the semi-finals en route to the American’s
1999 Roland Garros triumph and would have beaten him in the semi-finals that
year were it not for a timely rain delay which offered Agassi a reprieve.
In the second set of Friday’s Rome quarter-final Hrbaty offered Agassi
some reminders of why he had given him so
much trouble nearly six years previous. Five of the eight games were breaks of
serve, with Agassi repeatedly taking a break advantage only to be pegged back.
At 4-3 he gave himself the chance to serve for it and he took it after an energy-sapping
hour and 13 minutes.
If Agassi isn’t on most people’s roster of favorites for the French
Open, there is certainly plenty of smart money on Rafael Nadal, who yesterday
notched up a 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 win over Radek Stepanek to add to victories he has
picked up on
his clay-court odyssey that has
included tournament victories in Monte Carlo and Barcelona as well as his four
wins in Rome.
Such is Nadal’s supremacy at the moment that the 18-year-old’s biggest
worry heading into the French Open may be tiredness, especially if he extends
his winning streak to 16 by beating fellow Spaniard David Ferrer in today’s
semi-finals.
Irrespective of what happens over the weekend Nadal could choose not to play
in Hamburg next week in order to save his legs, a decision that Agassi, at 35,
will almost certainly make. The usually cold, damp weather in Hamburg often contrives
to make the already slow there even slower, creating conditions which only the
very hardy choose to play in.
While those men that dare will be in Hamburg, Maria Sharapova will be in Rome
attempting to clinch the World No.1 ranking. She needed to win the title in Berlin
this week to take the top spot but Justine Henin-Hardenne put an
end to that idea by beating her
6-3, 6-4 in the Berlin quarter-finals, avenging her loss to the Russian in Miami.
There is a sense of inevitability about Sharapova becoming World No.1 and she
will surely not have to wait too long.
Like Agassi, she should be prepared.
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