I think that is an amazingly accurate accessment of everything that went down between Agassi and Chang, and why Agassi alway seemed to have a chip on his shoulder towards Chang. Wow great breakdown. Also good to know I am not the only one who sensed that when they were on tour and mostly near the top together.
Thank you. It was really just a random, quick recollection of Agassi anti-Chang moments...there are others I remember. Since you seem interested, I dug up the article with the journalist who followed Agassi for a while and got pretty close to him (he got to play Agassi in a special handicapped match and eventually shaved his head to join the "club"). I was wrong about Agassi saying he played Chang when he, "came up to here", he was actually talking about just seeing Chang around but the comment was correct.
The section starts off with Gilbert ripping on Chang. Chang had told a funny joke at a tennis reception for Gilbert's old coach. While Gilbert was the punchline, the journalist says it was not a
"terrible insult or anything. Chnad had gotten up on stage, and the little story was sort of amusing, especially given that it was Michael Chang - who's no Henny Youngman, face it- telling it and that the audience was a bunch of.....tennis diehards, which you have to admite limits your material. It was just a funny little story and BG was the butt of the joke, and he can't get over it."
"So Bg's going on about this in the way he goes on about everything and then he stops himself, because a Chang joke comes to mind: "you know, you play a 5 setter against Michael Chang and 2 hours later you're ready to go out and play a couple more sets" (Datacipher NOTE: for the life of me, and 10+ years later, I don't really get this joke, seems pretty lame to me) And then he remembers he met Michaeol's fiancee at the reception and he starts riffing on her."
Gilbert then ends up asking Andre if he thinks Chang is "getting any?"....Agassi makes a masturbation joke aong other things, then admits he doesn't think so because he thinks Chang would see that as starting down the slippery slope.
The article then mentions how they used to be buds and talk about Jesus and the bible together but how Andre had moved towards "personal dynanmism and social responsiblity and Michael to "evangelistic engagement". (note: the journalist clearly sides with Andre here and notes that Chang had signed autographs "Jesus loves you. Michael Chang", which he calls "annoying by anyone's standards". (again, it doesn't really annoy me but...)
"but it's clearly more than a difference of phil. that annoys Andre about Michael,. One day andre referred to Micahel as "he of the deep pockets and short arms". Another day, when he was asked of someone if he had ever played Chang when they were kids, Andre explained that no, they didn't play much because Michael was younger, though "I've been seeing Michael around since he came up to here on me." Pause. "come to think of it, he still comes up to here on me.
Eventually if you keep pressing him, he'll offer a few reasons. He'll tell you that for his whole career Michael has imitated him, patterning his game after his, and that this bugs him; he'll tell lyou that it bugs him that Michael moved to Vegas, Andre's turf, the town in which he was born and raised; and he'll tell you that it bugs him that the reason Michael moved to Vegas is to avoid paying California taxes, and he'll talk about how odd it is for someone who is as extremee a born-again as Michael is to, you know, abidcate his duty as a citizen, to refuse to at least PAY for things like cops and schools and social services"
(Note: I think the imitation criticism is idiotic, I think him moving to Andre's home turf criticism is idiotic, I think moving to avoid taxes, is not a bad criticism at all, but then again, Andre would have to hate most of the top echelon of the tour....and while it might be hypocritical/contradictory of Michael to avoid the taxes....Andre really isn't a person who has a right to judge anyone about hypocrisy or deception...
It continues: "But thre real thing about Michael Chang is this: Here's Andre, and he's at the top - well, not literally the top; Sampras and mUster are ahead of him. But the whole world, when it talks about tennis, talks abouts ntohing but the Sampras-AGassi rvialry, and Nike has made Anre, not Pete, the focus of its Olympic tennis ad blitz, and Andre's teh one everyone wants to see, he's the star, tenni's only crossover artist, and whenever Andre talks about who his competition is, it's Pete, just Pete, and no one else. He's trying to convince himself that this is true. But every time he looks at Michael Chang there in the 4th spot on the ATP rankings, only a few points behind him, all over his ass, too close, just like on his home turf in Vegas, well, something inside Andre just knows that it's Chang who's the wild card in his life and he hates that more than he dislikes the actual flesh and blood Michael Chang.
Because what MIchael, who even Andre acknowledges improves 7 percent every single year (datacipher note: he said 5-10 in another interview), represents is the need for Andre himself to constantly improve and that's getting harder all the time. Andre's becoming an adult now, he's 26, and he has commitments, more every day. It's not that he feels burdened by any otf it- not Nike or Mountain Dew or the Official all star cafes or any of the other things that make him dozens of millions of dollar sa year; and not his own foundation..(datacipher edit)....not the business he and PErry Rogers, his best friend and COO are creeating, and not the prospect of a family of his own, no, he thrives on all of it, and moreover, he realizes taht it's the inevitable course his life must take. But right now it's annoying how much of a challenge it's become to deal with some single-minded, personality-free automaton for whom it's perfectly easy to subordinate everything, every single thing, to tennis, and Jesus freaking Christ."
Note: I believe the journalist met Agassi just after the AO 1996 and then spent 4+ months covering him, I wouldn't be surprised if Chang was a particularly sore spot then.
