Tennis is a lifetime sport and some rivalries are never really put to rest.
Andre Agassi says Jeff Tarango once brought him to tears by hooking him on a call on match point. Tarango said today Agassi's been spinning that story for years and insists it's simply not true.
Agassi and Tarango first faced-off in a 10-and-under tournament in San Diego's famed Balboa Park when Agassi was about eight and Tarango nine.
In his new memoir, "Open", Agassi recounts a story he has told in the past, claiming Tarango cheated him on a call in a sudden-death tie breaker in ruling Agassi's backhand crosscourt out though Agassi writes the shot was "three feet in, well beyond Tarango's reach."
Agassi writes he won the first seven tournaments of his junior career before running into Tarango in Balboa Park when bedlam broke loose.
"I play a kid named Jeff Tarango who isn't nearly on my level. But he wins the first set, 6-4. I'm stunned. Scared. My father is going to kill me," Agassi writes in Open. "Early in the third set Tarango twists his ankle. I start drop-shotting him, trying to make him run on the bad ankle. But he's only faking. his ankle is fine. He comes bounding in and smashes my drop shots and wins every point...
"I play as if my life hangs in the balance, which it does. Tarango must have had a father like mine, because he's playing the same way."
Agassi claims on match point, Tarango ruled his clear winner out, to steal a victory that was in reality a loss.
"Now he stops. All of a sudden, he looks back at where the ball hit. He smiles. 'Out,' he says," writes Agassi. "I stop. 'The ball was out!' Tarango yells. This is the rule in the juniors. Players act as their own linesman...Tarango has decided he'd rather do this than lose and he knows there's nothing anyonce can do about it. He raises his hand in victory. Now I start to cry."
It's a story Agassi has told at tournaments, including the US Open, but Tarango insists it is "a lie" and questions some of Agassi's other admissions in the book.
"I am kind of bothered because Andre has said a few times that I've done things to hurt the sport and things that he didn't like," Tarango told Tennis Week today. "And I'm like 'Andre, you're really lying about that (story).' I've confronted him about it before and now he's saying it again. He went on the Jim Rome show a while ago and said I made him cry as a kid and that I was a terrible guy. I called into the show and I told him that wasn't what happened. I said 'You were crying because your dad pulled up in an RV and he was gonna beat you if you lost. You're up 4-3 in the tie breaker and you get overruled twice in a row, wasn't that the reason (you lost)?' I mean it was a USTA (sanctioned) match. It's documented, he was overruled twice in a row. To continuously say I cheated, that's not true. It didn't happen."
Asked his reaction to Agassi's admission he used crystal meth in 1997, then lied to the ATP about how it entered his system, Tarango replied: "If he is willing to confess to some of his lies (now) what is he not confessing to? So he's admitting to some lies and telling us it's the truth now? It seems self serving to me."
Some players have raised questioned that if the ATP did discard Agassi's positive drug test and covered up the fact it existed, then is it possible that the ATP also concealed other positive tests for Agassi or other stars? Tarango takes issue with Agassi's admission that he lied about how the crystal meth entered his system and the fact he reveals "I hate tennis" a few times in his book and says both actions hurt the sport.
"I think he's hurting the sport. Where is his apology to all those guys he beat when he said he was doing (crystal meth)?" Tarango said. "Also, people say it is not a performance-enhancing drug. I don't know that it's not performance enhancing — I have no experience with it. Is he going to take a lie detector test and say he didn't do other drugs between '96 and '99? How do we even know he often he was tested if he says the ATP threw out that positive test? What about all the guys he beat during that period? Maybe they could have had breakthrough tournaments. I think he is not addressing the possibility that he cheated those guys (if he was using drugs at that time) and that shows that he does not appreciate the game or the other players.
"As for the 'I hate tennis' I think it's BS. I mean, it's one thing to say 'I hate tennis' after you lose a tough match. It's another thing to say 'I hate tennis' after all that it's done for you all these years. What about the kids who look up to him and who attend his school? I think he is hurting the sport."
