I’m up watching Agassi at the US Open. Agassi won the first two sets 6-4, 6-4 then lost the third. Fourth set is tied 5-5, Agassi serving. The crowd is electric. Living and dying with every point, groaning at every point Agassi loses and erupting with every point he wins. It’s beautiful.

Any sport is great to watch when there’s a decent amount of action (that rules out soccer) and it really matters. And Agassi, tonight, playing what could be his last match, at Arthur Ashe Stadium, matters.

Here’s hoping Andre finishes the job tonight and moves on. Whatever the case, I’m not changing the channel until the match is over.

Update: Agassi is done physically. Limping around the court, it’s obvious his back has tightened up and his legs are leaving him. He’s laboring, surviving on grit and the mojo of the assembled masses. Bagdatis stormed through the rest of the 4th set, winning 7-5. It’s now 2-1 Agassi in the 5th, and that crowd is going nuts. Baghdatis took an injury timeout after the first game of the 5th so a trainer could rub down a cramp in his quad, and the crowd took the opportunity for a raucous “clap-clap-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP: LET’S GO ANDRE!” chant. Agassi sat in his chair and acted like he was adjusting his racquet strings. Goosebumps.

When Baghdatis surprises Agassi with a drop shot just over the net, Andre is making the kinds of noises I make in the racquetball court when I’m surprised and need to change directions, but my body isn’t on board with the plan - sort of a gutteral Ahhh-whoa—-ugh.

Part of my affinity for Agassi is that he was the young long-haired bad boy taking the tennis world by storm (stone-washed denim at Wimbledon!) when I was a tennis player in high school. Now he’s got even less hair than me, and even though he married Steffi Graf his wife can’t hold a candle to mine (though if he would have married Gabriella Sabatini instead I’d have a tough choice there).

Update 2: Agassi pulled it off, 7-5 in an electrifying 5th set, coming from 40-15 down in the last game to break a previously-cramping Baghdatis. Crowd goes wild. Getting a little dusty in here.