When Agassi singed with Head in 1993

[HBK4life]

I remember the first I figured he wasn’t with Donnay was I saw a picture from a newspaper of him playing with the radical in a warm up tournament to Wimbledon. Does anyone know if Andre tested out any other brands? He didn’t play the French that year. I am pretty certain the two tournaments he won early in the year he had the Donnay he had in the latter months of 92. And then like “poof” he has this yellow and black thing.

 

[big ted]

i only remember him showing up at wimbledon with it as a head prototype.. no stencil on strings, but he said it was head..
he did use donnay at beginning of year without a stencil also actually... maybe his contract was up or donnay went under?
i dont remember him testing out other brands in '93...

 

[Kevin T]

I can't recall him trying out other brands. When he signed with Donnay, I remember a Tennis Magazine article mentioning that virtually every manufacturer was trying to snag him, from Head to Snauwaert to Fox. Donnay gave him something like 6 million over 5 years...resulting in Donnay going to the poor house, a la Becker and Puma I imagine. That same Tennis article mentioned Prince was willing to re-sign him, but not at the numbers offered by Donnay, as he was using an older Prince frame in the Graphite 110. In 1993, Ivanisevic was probably Head's highest ranked player (Muster was at least top 20, as well), so signing Agassi was a big score. Courier, Sampras and Edberg, contracted or not, were all winning with the Wilson Pro Staff.

 

[HBK4life]

I have to think he tried others. I wonder if he tried yonex? That would be interesting. I would like to know what made him go with head? Was it simply money? Probably.

 

[cortado]

So how do brands afford to pay tennis players so much money? Would Donnay have even managed to break even on their Agassi investment? I read that Yonex is paying Wawrinka 5 million per year. Do they even sell 5 million dollars worth of tennis racquets in a year? Or even 1 million?

 

[Dan007]

So how do brands afford to pay tennis players so much money? Would Donnay have even managed to break even on their Agassi investment? I read that Yonex is paying Wawrinka 5 million per year. Do they even sell 5 million dollars worth of tennis racquets in a year? Or even 1 million?

I think Yonex is much bigger company and able to generate revenue more so than Donnay in the 80-90's. They have rackets, strings, grips, clothing, shoes and they also are active in badminton where they are the clear number 1 company.

 

[big ted]

So how do brands afford to pay tennis players so much money? Would Donnay have even managed to break even on their Agassi investment? I read that Yonex is paying Wawrinka 5 million per year. Do they even sell 5 million dollars worth of tennis racquets in a year? Or even 1 million?

i think donnay was struggling before they signed agassi.. after borg left their racquet line and popularity took a nosedive..
they hoped agassi could bring them alive again, and it looked like they did at least for a little while..
i think they even had a business deal with bollietteri camp, which agassi mentioned in his book as his reason for switching to donnay
in the first place....

 

[HBK4life]

i think donnay was struggling before they signed agassi.. after borg left their racquet line and popularity took a nosedive..
they hoped agassi could bring them alive again, and it looked like they did at least for a little while..
i think they even had a business deal with bollietteri camp, which agassi mentioned in his book as his reason for switching to donnay
in the first place....

I was a kid in the 90s. I don’t recall seeing many Donnay sticks. In HS I saw A LOT of radicals.

 

[vsbabolat]

I was a kid in the 90s. I don’t recall seeing many Donnay sticks. In HS I saw A LOT of radicals.

Head has much better distribution and the Radical is a better racquet

 

[Fast Eddie Felson]

I remember the first I figured he wasn’t with Donnay was I saw a picture from a newspaper of him playing with the radical in a warm up tournament to Wimbledon. Does anyone know if Andre tested out any other brands? He didn’t play the French that year. I am pretty certain the two tournaments he won early in the year he had the Donnay he had in the latter months of 92. And then like “poof” he has this yellow and black thing.

SINGED with Head??? I didn't know AA HAD A VOICE!!! OHHHHH SIGNED.....

 

[jmacdaununder2]

Actually ‘singed’ means slightly burnt; the past tense of ‘sing’ is ‘sang’ and the past participle is ‘sung‘ - what’s that saying about people who live in glass houses?