A Thing of Beauty: The Counterattack

It was past midnight already and I could barely stay awake, tired from a 14 mile bike ride later in the day. But I stayed on, and watched the rerun of the full match between Agassi and Karlovic (sfgate-AP report). The day before, I saw Andre dismantle the unknown Sabau with nothing more than perfectly placed lobs and strokes...it was just beautiful.

Karlovic was a tougher match and had every potential to upset Agassi. The boxscore tells half of the story (7-6, 7-6, 7-5). Karlovic had a consistent 135mph serve that just produced ace-after-ace-after-ace. If Agassi had an ace up his sleeve, it wouldn't be his 95mph serve, but his skill as a serve return specialist. I'm sure even Karlovic was impressed at how half his surefire aces got returned to him as if he was gettin a dose of his own medicine :).

And that's the other half of the story, the fact that despite his skill, Agassi could only return those high-velocity bullets half the time (and that's an awesome feat in itself!). This is where experience and smart play kick in. Agassi needed to keep Karlovic in ground play, and making sure he was able to return as many serves as he could was half the battle (I know, I'm halving too much! ;) but hell there is no one singular element in this masterpiece....would you like me to talk about a two-prong approach instead :) :) ). The other half was exposing his weaknesses, and indeed the longer play caused Karlovic to make mistakes and only reveal to Agassi that he had a backhand stroke that was just out of whack...and Agassi pounded on it head-on.

What can I say, it was a thing of beauty. And to see Andre be truly gracious to the audience after he won the match was icing on the cake.