2005 French Open News
By Eleanor Preston | May 24, 2005

There was a moment during Andre Agassi’s 7-5, 4-6, 6-7, 6-1, 6-0 loss to Jarkko Nieminen when the American buried his eyes in his towel in a picture of despair. It was as if he was trying to hide his face from the watching world. But his comments afterwards suggested that what he may really be shying away from is the realization that his 35-year-old body can no longer cope with professional tennis.
 
From the third set onward, Agassi was so crippled by an inflamed nerve in his back – a chronic problem which was initially misdiagnosed as a hip injury - that he could barely walk, let alone give Nieminen a match. Agassi admitted that he would have retired but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so, and though he was talking about the match when he said it, he might just as well have been talking about his career.
 
Roland Garros 2005 was Agassi’s 57th Grand Slam appearance, a record for any man in the Open era. But there was little for him to celebrate on Tuesday as he headed back to his home in Las Vegas and his doctor’s office.
 
“It’s not good to be out there and not be able to play for four or five hours. It doesn’t leave you with high hopes,” Agassi said. “First and foremost is the way I feel, the chance that it gives me one way or another. If I feel this way it’s impossible. That’s very disappointing. I don’t enjoy feeling that way. I don’t enjoy being on a court like that.”
 
Agassi’s only hope of making it as far as Wimbledon, let alone playing out the season, is to have more cortisone injections to reduce the inflammation around his sciatic nerve, which has been giving him sharp pains in his back and down into his leg. He had one injection after playing in March and will now have another in the hope of being fit for his next scheduled tournament, the Stella Artois Championships, which starts a week from Monday.
 
“It had great results for me for a few months but everything (at that time) was on hard court, two-out-of-three sets,” Agassi said. “Gradually, gradually it got worse at a slow rate and really started picking up in the last month or so. For me it lasted for two or three months so maybe if I do it again, it can give me some relief for a period of time.”

Even if the next injection works as well as the last one, Agassi will require more cortisone before the U.S. Open series begins in late July, and doctors have ruled out having any more before next season. This latest back flare-up appears to have been more extreme and more painful than anything he has experienced before, something which suggests the problem is getting worse.
 
“I knew I’d be needing an injection at some point over the summer, but for it to feel that intense during the match is a big surprise for me,” Agassi said.
 
He refused to comment on whether he is reaching the point where his body is telling him to stop playing, but he admitted he would be forced to decide whether or not to play once the season is over.
 
It was left to Andy Roddick, Vince Spadea and James Blake to bring some good news to American tennis at a tournament where no U.S. man made it past the third round last year.
 
Roddick made lighter work than expected of 20-year-old Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, winning 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 despite some impressive showboating and fist pumping from the feisty Frenchman, who kept his home crowd entertained but lacked the court craft to ever really threaten Roddick.
 
Spadea beat 2002 French Open champion Albert Costa 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 in a victory which must rank among the man from Boca Raton’s most impressive on the surface. Spadea’s reward is a second-round clash with Germany’s Tommy Haas, who prepared for Roland Garros by helping his country win the World Team Cup in Düsseldorf last week and promptly beat his teammate, Florian Mayer, in the first round in Paris.
 
Blake came through qualifying at Roland Garros – no mean feat on a surface which does nothing for his game – and notched up his fourth win in a row by beating another qualifier, Tomas Tenconi of Italy 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 and set up a second-round clash against Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka.
 
In the women’s draw, Maria Sharapova gave her legion of fans a few palpitations by almost losing to fellow Russian Evgenia Linetskaya. She was a break down in the third before lifting her play and somehow pulling out a victory that keeps her hopes of taking the World No.1 ranking from Lindsay Davenport alive. Justine Henin-Hardenne looked a little more convincing in her 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 win over Spanish veteran Conchita Martinez.
 
Had Sharapova or Henin-Hardenne lost, they would surely have stolen the headlines from Agassi. As it was, the sight of him hobbling out of the tournament, perhaps forever, will be the day’s enduring image.

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