Former world number one Andre Agassi will face in Limassol Cypriot tennis legend, Australian Open finalist and former world number eight Marcos Baghdatis on Wednesday 18 September 2024 in an already sold-out event in Limassol, Cyprus.
The match will mark the opening of the Marcos Baghdatis Tennis Academy, which will be located on the site of the City of Dreams Mediterranean resort.
The resort’s general manager Grant Johnson said, “it is our great pleasure to be hosting a match between these two great athletes to celebrate the official opening of the Marcos Baghdatis Tennis Academy.”
“The tennis showdown will be a truly unforgettable event, marking the beginning of a new chapter in Cyprus sport. The academy represents an important milestone for our resort and the tennis community,” he added.
Agassi – married to former world number 1 Steffi Graf – is of Armenian descent and now lives in Las Vegas. His father, Emmanuel “Mike” Agassi, represented Iran as a boxer in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics before immigrating to the United States. Upon obtaining citizenship, he altered the family name from Agassian to Agassi.
Agassi is a legend of the game. He has a total of eight grand slams, winning the Australian Open four times, the US Open twice, and the French Open and the Wimbledon Championships once each. The American is the second of five men in the Open Era to achieve the Career Grand Slam.
Additionally, he won a gold medal at his home Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, while also winning three Davis Cups for the US national team.
Baghdatis and Agassi have history. The second-round contest between them at the US Open in 2006 wasn’t just any match. It was the 870th, and final, victory of Agassi’s 21-year career, and it was a five-set, four-hour epic that left the two men lying next to each other on twin stretchers in the trainers’ room at Flushing Meadows in New York.
