Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
wire servicesNo. 6 seed falls to 271st-ranked player in three sets at French.
PARIS - Four days before the start of the French Open, Andre Agassi was out on center court as dusk approached, hustling to get his game going on the dusty clay. He seemed frustrated. He cursed. He scolded himself. After one poor stroke, he pounded a ball into the last row of the upper deck.
If there was a consolation, it was this: Hey, it's only practice.
He was back on that court Monday for his first-round match, and this time each shoddy shot counted. And they just kept coming, adding up to one of the biggest upsets in Grand Slam history.
Agassi, owner of eight major titles and ranked No. 1 just last year, lost 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 to France's Jerome Haehnel, a career minor-leaguer ranked 271st and making his tour debut after playing the qualifying rounds.
When it ended, Agassi gathered his two racket bags, slung a white warmup jacket over his shoulder then shuffled off toward the locker room. He didn't acknowledge the fans' applause.
Was this their last chance to see the 34-year-old?
"Hard to say. You want to come back, but you just don't know," the oldest man in the tournament said. "It's a year away. That's a long time for me right now. Chances get less every year, for sure."
Word of his loss spread quickly across Roland Garros.
"It's a shocking result. It shows every player's as good as the top on any given day," 27th seed Vince Spadea said after erasing nine match points against French qualifier Florent Serra to win 7-5, 1-6, 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 9-7.
Spadea could have faced Agassi in the third round. Andy Roddick, a 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, 7-5 winner over Todd Martin, was slated to meet Agassi in the quarterfinals. Then again, Roddick probably wasn't looking too far ahead, knowing he'd lost his first match at the French Open the past two years.
"It's definitely nice to get a win here and not walk away from this place feeling disappointed after the first day," said the second-seeded Roddick, whose record-setting serve loses some oomph on clay.
Agassi's certainly not at the top of his game on the red surface, especially with merely one match on it all year - a loss last week to a qualifier ranked 339th. He limits his tennis travel these days for fitness and family: He and wife Steffi Graf have two young children.
"At this stage of my career, I can't go around grinding, trying to get in matches, at the risk of expending the energies I do have," said Agassi, whose career record is 799-247 compared with Haehnel's 1-0. "The difficulty is that you come out to clay, and if something's a little bit off, people can exploit it."
Still, Monday's result was stunning because of how lopsided it was, where and when it happened (Agassi's earliest defeat at a major since 1998) and the opponent. In recent history, it ranks with Pete Sampras' loss to George Bastl at Wimbledon in 2002, and Lleyton Hewitt's loss to Ivo Karlovic there a year ago.
Haehnel (pronounced eh-NEL) had never beaten anyone ranked higher than 190th in six years floating around low-level circuits. He considered quitting this winter.
"For somebody like me, who has never been on the real circuit, it was amazing to play against him today," said Haehnel, 23, who doesn't have a coach and doesn't travel much because he hates to fly. "He's my favorite player."
Tentative instead of dictating points, Agassi sprayed balls for 39 unforced errors, 21 more than Haehnel. He whiffed on a backhand when Haehnel's shot skipped off the baseline. Later, when another shot found a line, Agassi looked up at coach Darren Cahill in the stands and shook his head as if to say, "What's going on here?"
Of the 31 seeded players who completed matches Monday, four others were eliminated, including 2003 Wimbledon finalist Mark Philippoussis, who lost to Luis Horna. Also out: No. 16 Fernando Gonzalez, No. 24 Jelena Dokic, and No. 27 Eleni Daniilidou.
Defending champion Justine Henin-Hardenne, back after six weeks off with a viral infection, struggled against Sandrine Testud before winning 6-4, 6-4. She trailed 2-0 and double-faulted eight times.
Roddick, apparently suffering from a flulike virus, was given fluids intravenously before his match against Martin, then heard some angry words from Martin afterward because of an incident in the eighth game of the third set.
Martin had stopped play and questioned a line call after returning a shot he thought had landed out. The overrule went in Martin's favor, and Roddick took issue, noting that Martin had continued the point rather than stopping play immediately.
"For lack of a better phrase, I made a royal-you-know-what out of myself," Martin said of his angry words.
The two resolved the issue later in the locker room.