I realize tennis doesn't get much press, but Wednesday night, Agassi will be playing fellow American James Blake. I knew James Blake had somewhat of a comeback this past year, but I only knew that he broke his neck while chasing down a ball. Take a look at what he's been through in the last year (courtesy of ESPN)
In a span of five weeks in 2004, he:
(1) broke his neck when he ran into a net post in Rome. Blake said, "I was on the court, and I was running for a ball, tripped, and hit a net post headfirst. I could have been paralyzed if I hadn't turned my head at the last moment."
(2) his dad died from cancer 2 weeks later
(3) he contracted the shingles and it paralyzed part of his face, left his vision blurred, and caused debilitating dizziness.
Needless to say, his ranking fell to No. 210 back in April (tennis rankings are based on 1-year of play, its stupid). He somehow got healthy faster than he was supposed to, but he's been forced to be a qualifier (meaning you have to win 4 matches just to make the main draw) in the other Grand Slams this year, and is playing in the US Open as a wildcard entry (meaning they excused him from going through the qualifying tournament). In the third round of the US Open, he stunned No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal -- the first time he has ever beaten a top 10 player in a Grand Slam! Now, Blake is suddenly in his first-ever Grand Slam quarterfinal, against Andre Agassi.
The other amazing thing? Agassi is playing in his 20TH US Open! For a tennis player, that's just unheard of. Maybe I've sparked someone's attention. At the least, the matchup should be interesting. The match is on USA Wednesday night.
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