Andre Agassi says he was at his "unhappiest" during his first stint at the world No. 1 spot but returning to the Challenger helped him rediscover the spark he needed and "connect" to the game again.
ADVERTISEMENT
Shortly after landing his third Grand Slam title at the 1995 Australian Open, the American also reached the top spot for the first time in his career in April of that year. But then, his career took a turn for the worse after he started dealing with a wrist injury, which led to his results dipping but also missing some tournaments.
All of that led to Agassi plummeting to No. 141 in late 1997 and turning to the Challenger Tour. That turned out to be a wise move since the American - who had struggled with consistency in his limited number of tournaments played that year - finished as runner-up at the Las Vegas Challenger before winning the Burbank Challenger in his last event of 1997.
By 1998, the American tennis icon returned to winning ATP titles - that set him up nicely for a big Grand Slam comeback and winning five more Majors and returning to the world No. 1 spot before finishing his career in 2006.
ADVERTISEMENT
Agassi: Everybody was surprised except me...
Last week, the former eight-time Grand Slam visited the Phoenix Challenger.
I got to number one in the world, and people must've thought I was living the dream, but I was probably the most disconnected, unhappy person in a lot of ways. I spent two years falling to 140 in the world. Everybody in the world was surprised except me, he said during his visit, via the ATP website.
And after deciding to return to the Challenger level and seeing all the fight and grind that was taking place there, Agassi didn't need anything else to motivate himself again.
It was too important to me and people thought I was Bruce Springsteen playing at the local bar or something. But for me it was the most connected Id ever felt with tennis, because I finally had my reason to be back out there," the former world No. 1 said.
