The word drogu? was scrawled under Andre Agassi’s name in the walk of champions into the players’ lounge at the Palais Omnisports yesterday.
It had been wiped off within a couple of minutes, but, clearly, the man who said that his career was transformed in this city has left another mark on it that will not be so hastily expunged.
Drogu? is French for a drug addict. Last night those players who numbered Agassi as an ally and idol not that long ago met here to debate how much the former world No 1’s revelations have torn at the heart of their sport. Obviously, one of their number is in a particularly unforgiving mood.
Of those pointing the men’s game towards a more wholesome, clean future, Andy Murray, fresh from winning the Valencia Open on Sunday, is prominent and has earned a telling accolade from the former champion.
The American believes that the Scot, who begins his challenge in the BNP Paribas Masters with a second-round match against James Blake tomorrow, will win a grand-slam tournament and that it will pave the way to “a multitude of them”.
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Agassi said: “Murray has a selfinflicting tortured spirit about him when he’s on the court. [In] the last 18 months, he’s learnt how to use it.
“He needs to stay with it. I know he was on the verge in a couple of grand slams, with the hopes of doing it, and once he wins one, he’ll keep going. He’s proved that he’s a strong person. My advice? To keep getting better. Every day’s an opportunity to get one day better. He shouldn’t get hung up on results. Results are a by-product of your commitment and work ethic and not cutting a corner.”
It was ten years ago that Agassi completed his set of grand-slam tournaments by winning the French Open — “it gave me my career back, it gave me hope again,” he said on 60 Minutes, broadcast by CBS on Sunday evening in the United States — and followed that six months later by lifting this prestigious Masters title, for which the crème de la crème compete again this week.
The fallout from the 39-year-old’s revelation that he took crystal meth and lied to an independent doping tribunal in a successful attempt to cover up his misdemeanours is not about to go away. Agassi told 60 Minutes that he was in a fog at the time of his drug-taking, that he could not remember how many times he took the drug, “but it was way more than it should have been. There was a sadness followed by a chemically induced reconnection to life. But it was a life I did not want to be in.”
Now, with no hint of irony, Agassi is happy to applaud the stringency of the present drug-testing procedures. “This [his case] was in the pre-era of sensationalising drugs in sport and, as a result of tennis pushing itself forward to protect its integrity, we reached out to Wada [the World Anti-Doping Agency] and they’ve been a fabulous partner who’ve done a tremendous job in protecting that integrity of keeping drug cheaters out of the sport,” he said.
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“They’ve tested me specifically 150 times. Our sport should be proud of how we’ve moved forward through this day and age.”