Greetings, everyone. I just came back from a Longines press conference, after which a group of us got to sit down with Andre Agassi. Naturally, the question of this weekend's finals came up, and I thought you might be interested in what Agassi said.
Francesca Schiavone over Li Na. "This is incredible—it's the final that will probably get the lowest viewership in the U.S. and the highest ever, globally. They say 400 million Chinese will be watching it. That's just incredible. But I went on record on camera—you can go and find it online—a month-and-a-half ago saying Schiavone will win the tournament.
"I think she'll win because in women's tennis, nobody is taking charge right now, it's pretty open. Secondly, she is an incredibly crafty player with a phenomenal fighting spirit. Beyond that, when you've won here, you have two choices. You do what I did, which was to get too emotional and play a shocker, or you can settle into the tournament and actually feel like it's yours. I believe that with her spirit, she'll come out, use her game, and find a way to get to everybody."
Rafael Nadal over Roger Federer. I'm going to have to paraphrase this because the tape recorder wasn't on. Agassi had said some remarkably flattering things about Federer earlier, but he felt that ultimately, "Rafa will find a way to get to him." He compared the rivalry of the day with his own with Pete, suggesting that Nadal has Federer's number at Roland Garros. That's bad enough, he explained, but the really frustrating thing is that Federer knows it too—just like Andre knew that Pete had his number.
Enjoy the finals, everyone.
-- Pete