Adios Agassi and So long Schumi

It is official now. Two legends of contrasting games have announced their retirement.

Agassi took his last bow at the Rod Laver arena last week ending his amazing pro tennis career. His career graph was marked with appreciable highs such as winning the elusive Wimbledon crown, the numerous grand slam crowns, the never-say-die grit, and marriage to steffi graf. His lows in life were when he lost to Sampras in Wimbledon and when he lost is hair to the barber's scissors.

Folks of our times grew up watching the duels of agassi, sampras, becker, and lendl. The good old Doordarshan days when the weekends were spent watching the US, french and Wimbledon grand slams. Presumably, the next few days after the matches, the discussions at the schools, addas, and playgrounds revolved around the volleys, serves, and ground strokes. The Las Vegas showman--as the cliche goes, attracted fans by the millions for his ground play and baseline attack. The fairer sex was attracted to him for good reasons too. Guys used to buy the Nike stuff inspired by the Swoosh so often found on his jerseys. The swoosh is now replaced by the three stripes and the blonde mane is replaced by the bald pate.

He survived and survived well past his playing days and fought hard when his fellow contemporaries- sampras and becker quit. Andy Roddick and Andy Murray seem to run close to his popularity but there can always be only one Agassi, martina navratilova, becker, and borg.

Schumi has decided not to drive in the F-1 circuit. So it is a double whammy for all agassi and schumi fans. Ferrari fans I am sure are crying their hearts out after Schumi quit and probably packing up or flying the ferrari flag at half-past. We shall never again see Schumi run a Ferrari for us. F-1 relatively new to us Indians probably picked up fast mainly due to Schumi's run at the top of F-1. Sometimes I used to wonder if Schumi is ever bored to open the champagne always and celebrate his win.

So huge was his impact that I can not forget to mention a few instances. My friends and colleagues in Huawei were in Beijing on work and when the F-1 circuit came to Shanghai, they spent a good fortune to catch their idol drive on the curves. Their excitement was obvious and i can relate it to probably popping a couple of ecstasy pills!! My colleague here in my present organization owns a Ferrari custom made laptop. And every time he powers the laptop, you will hear Schumi revving his ferrari. Sorry folks, but I am too generous with adjectives for schumi.

The past year was very dismal to Schumi and all of us since he had a poor run in the circuit. This year he has been good and has hit the podium many times. As I read in today's papers, Schumi celebrated his 90th win at Monza yesterday. We may not see him breast the checkered flag again in the next season but only hope that Massa and Kimi who joins Ferrari do justice to the standards that he has set.

Adieu agassi and schumi!