There was a moment during Andre Agassi’s broadcast debut when he unconsciously made the magic of tennis television earlier this year.
He was asked to break down Carlos Alcaraz’s backhand and identified small tweaks to techniques that were previously not mentioned among commentators.
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“It was last year. He’s lifting the ball high. His right arm is a little bent, so it’s up long before the racket head gets down,” Agassi began, starting a two-minute dissection of what made Alkaraz’s new straight arm takeback become more effective.
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“If you look at the ball here, because of what he’s doing, that ball can move deep into the strike zone and you don’t know if he’ll grab it and pull it or pull it when he gets offline. “In tennis, power and control come from the time spent on the racket with the ball. I don’t care how you swing. If you can keep that ball for a moment with the racket, we’re talking about nuances.
That moment became one of the most viral videos coming out of TNT’s French Open Coverage for two reasons.
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Of course, it’s Agassi at first. An eight-time major winner, a true cultural icon of the 1990s, he is just beginning to reappear as a public figure in sports. After years of his family-centered life and charity in Las Vegas, seeing him pop up is like a dopamine hit of sports nostalgia.
But the second reason the moment resonated is that ESPN’s lack of imagination was markedly different from the type of television coverage tennis earned in the US, where sports were ossified as broadcast asset. In Grand Slam Tournaments, where Tennis is the only opportunity to create new fans on a large scale, viewers usually run away without much insight into what is going on in court, rather than guessing which players John McEnroe is feeling more pressure.
It was a tough memory that tennis could truly benefit from Agassi becoming the face of sports on television. Still, from Agassi’s perspective, his early experience as a broadcaster was a reminder of why it never happened.
“You know, I did something for the BBC, the semi-finals of Tim Henman and Andrew Castle and Wimbledon,” Agassi told Yahoo Sports in a phone interview on Sunday. “Were there no commercials so you really enjoyed it? We could actually discuss tennis. I’m not a fan of reducing what’s going on there to a pretty insightful clip. That’s not the way I handle it, it’s not the way I watch the game, it’s not the way I do it, it’s not the way I do it, it’s not the way I watch the game, it’s a form that allows serious conversations about what’s actually going on.”
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Even at 55, Agassi’s relationship with tennis is fascinating, even almost 19 years after he played his final professional match at the US Open. Over much of his youth, it tormented him with the points of substance abuse and constantly regretted a life he didn’t feel like he had chosen. Later, when he crashed from the rankings, Agassi found his purpose to play and return to number one after receiving a $40 million loan to open a charter school for underserved communities. That effort has become both passion and business, which is the key reason why the American Tennis Association Foundation celebrated the Serve Up Dream Award at this year’s Opening Night Gala.
“When I played, have you influenced people for a few hours? You may be giving them memories,” Agassi said. “But the foundation is my life job and I’m even more happy to change the trajectory of my child’s life. That’s great, but I can live without a prize.”
CocoGough and Andrea Gassi are high fives from each other, starring the open exhibition match held at Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billy Janking National Tennis Centre on August 21, 2025 at Flushing Queens. (Getty Images)
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Still, it was another toe that went back to the Agassi mix. This included a lengthy interview with Andy Roddick’s popular “Serve Serve” podcast in June and a three-day training stint in Washington, DC with Holger Rune, who was No. 11 last month. At last week’s Stars of the Open event, he got on the court to play a small doubles exhibition at Cocogoff and flashed some fist pumps.
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“I still watch tennis quite often. It’s kind of nice to attach personality to the game and understand how they are handled. I enjoy that part,” he said. “It’s a different generation, so we don’t mix too many commonalities too much, but when you meet a good person and it takes root, it’s kind of cool.”
In a way, Agassi preserves the mysticism by staying a little on the edge by not oversaturating himself, just as McEnroe franchises 1980s fame and far beyond his role as a sports excellence broadcaster.
Yet at the same time, the presence of Agassi is severely necessary. In an age when television executives seem to have little interest in presenting tennis beyond character and conflict, Agassi has the natural Yoda-like ability to make the complex appear both relevant and simple.
“The Lines,” said Craig Shapiro, who was Agassi travel racket engineer for several years in the 1990s and then directed the 2007 documentary Agassi: The Lines.
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“He’s always been offering a very unique and promoted perspective. He remains this unicorn and the fact that we see him is like a real draw. People really, really drawn to him. I think he’s always going to come across TV. I think he’s at the box office.
The problem is how often the rest of us get those moments and unique insights from one of the best tennis minds we’ve ever seen. The full-time broadcast is grind. Even the four Grand Slams are committed for more than two months each year. Additionally, the free-flowing format Agassi enjoyed at the BBC is not available in the US. There, a 90-second commercial break must be caught every two seconds.
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“I’m looking at tennis in a certain way, and I wanted to see if there’s anything interesting that I could contribute,” he said. “It was really a data experiment to see if there was a way to contribute to the experience of people watching tennis.”
There is no doubt that more Agassi on TV will not only improve the fan experience, but they will also be smarter. He still doesn’t seem to want to bring himself back to too many people, but even getting a little more access to tennis genius feels like a big win for the sport, as he hasn’t been too visible at events like the US Open for many years.
