Agassi progresses
Andre Agassi was far from his best but still beat Andreas Seppi in straight sets to advance to the third round at Wimbledon today.
Agassi, playing for the last time at the All England Club ahead of his retirement later this year, was made to fight all the way to secure a 6-4 7-6 6-4 victory on court one.
The 36-year-old could now face French Open champion Rafael Nadal on Saturday, but only if the second seed could overcome a 2-1 deficit to American qualifier Robert Kendrick on Centre Court.
In the opening set Agassi was grateful for a close line call in his favour as Seppi, a semi-finalist at Nottingham last week, threatened to go 5-3 ahead.
And the 1992 champion took full advantage with some superb groundstrokes in the 10th game to force the first break of serve and take the set 6-4.
Agassi was forced to come back from a set down in the first round against Boris Pashanski and was certainly not having it all his own way against his 22-year-old opponent.
Each of Agassi’s service games were long, drawn-out affairs with the number 25 seed forced to save more break points to keep his nose in front.
Such persistence looked like paying off when Agassi broke Seppi to take a 5-3 lead and serve for the set, but a woeful game allowed the Italian to break straight back and eventually take it to a tie-break.
Agassi raced into a 3-0 lead – Seppi serving an untimely first double fault - and after Seppi reduced his deficit to 3-2, Agassi took the next four points in a row to win it 7-2 and move into a two-set lead.
Losing the second set seemed to knock the stuffing out of Seppi, who had beaten British wild card Jamie Baker in four sets in the first round.
He surrendered his serve in the third game and looked down and out when Agassi created two more break points in the seventh.
To his credit Seppi, whose win over Baker was only his second ever in a grand slam, refused to give in and held serve to force Agassi to serve out for the match.
That proved to be no problem and Agassi was soon blowing his trademark kisses to all corners of the court after booking his place in the last 32.
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