Agassi - Robert Philip

"Image," said Andre Agassi, "is everything".;But despite the George Michael designer stubble, the Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, the earrings, the nail varnish and the shocking pink thigh-hugging cycle shorts, the kid from Las Vegas had the image of being a loser.;That was until the 'Great White Hype', as his critics were fond of calling him, became Wimbledon Champion in the summer of 1992.;As a baby he used a tiny table-tennis bat to swat a balloon tied to his high chair, at four he was knocking up with Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg in front of a huge audience in Caesars Palace, and at seven he was winning under 10 tournaments while his father, a former Olympic boxer, battled officialdom and parents of rival players.;Andre Agassi is accustomed to rocking the established order of things. A teenage rebel, he dropped out of school at thirteen, drank and smoked marijuana. On court he cursed and smashed rackets, while railing against the army-camp discipline of Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy.;After turning professional on his sixteenth birthday, his rise was meteoric and, by the age of eighteen, he was ranked third in the world and had `found God'. His fellow players accused him of gamesmanship and `tanking' (deliberately losing matches). John McEnroe said, "His act is wearing thin". To keep outsiders at a distance, he surrounded himself with an infamous entourage - his brother Phil, his trainer Gil, and his personal agent Bill (dubbed Dr No because of his attitude towards the media). Agassi was earning millions without ever having won a major championship.;Then, in only his thirteenth ever match on a grass court, Agassi beat Croatia's Goran Ivanisevic to win perhaps the greatest prize of all, the Wimbledon men's singles title.