The most recognisable head in tennis entered the fray yesterday afternoon. French player Anthony Dupuis then set about trying to addle it, as any player outside the top 100 must when playing the current title holder and probably the best player in the world.
Punching, hitting and running, and sucking every watt of emotional energy from a vocal crowd, the Frenchman did everything he could to upset Andre Agassi in the first set of his defence of the French Open.
Dupuis made faces, grunted, sweated and blew like a compressor. But Agassi, rarely in a rush to polish off opponents, faced the early sonic boom as a champion should, countering Dupuis's first break of service with an immediate break back and meeting each raucous reaction to a home-point with typical doe-eyed calm.
The 28-year-old opted to control rather than confront the Frenchman's high-tempo bluster and after weathering a couple of first set points before winning the set on a tie break, the tempest subsided. Over the worst of it, Agassi then stretched his tired opponent, taking the second and third sets comfortably 6-3, 6-4.
"It's tough. It's tough conditions out there," he said. "I feel like I'm surviving myself. I didn't want to go out there and start pulling triggers, missing shots and not finding my range." At the end of the match 27-year-old Dupuis embraced Agassi to let him know that occasionally first-round losers do go home satisfied.
Dupuis had been harbouring dreams of playing Agassi since the Las Vegan used wear his shoulder-length hair with peroxide blond streaks. Last year at Roland Garros, Agassi joined Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Fred Perry and Don Budge as one of only five players to win all four Grand Slam events.
"I acknowledged that what he said was nice. He made me feel old," said the title holder, who faces Karol Kucera in the next round.
After Tuesday's washout, yesterday's crammed day moved largely in favour of the top players. Third seed and current world number one Magnus Norman advanced in three sets against French qualifier Thierry Guardiola, with sixth seed Cedric Pioline benefiting from the retirement of Italy's Davide Sanguinetti after four sets.
The unseeded but fancied Chilean player Marcelo Rios also departed, but not without being informed that he had finally lost the "Prix Citron" title for being the most uncooperative player on the circuit. The prize was recently passed on to Yevgeny Kafelnikov.
"I don't care anymore," replied Rios. "I think everything the journalists are doing is bullshit."
An obviously frustrated Rios, who was forced to retire against Germany's Tommy Haas after just over an hour, blamed pains in his legs as the principal reason. A quarter-finalist last year and in 1998, Rios has just returned after surgery and has been struggling for fitness.
Pat Rafter, the 1997 US Open winner who missed almost all of last year due to injury and was unseeded in Paris, came through to stand in the way of French hope Cedric Pioline in round two. It should be one of the more attractive packages in the next round.
Rafter took just over an hour and a half to advance, a good deal less than his Australian colleague Lleyton Hewitt. It took over three hours for Hewitt to dismiss the only player to walk off the court mid-match at Wimbledon, Jeff Tarango.
England's Tim Henman advanced to round three by beating Germany's Christian Vinck, as did the fancied Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten, who beat Marcelo Charpentier of Argentina.
Henman, after a far from impressive first-round triumph over Vince Spadea, at last showed his tennis teeth as he beat Vinck 6-2 6-4 7-6. Australian Mark Philippoussis beat American Paul Goldstein 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 6-0 6-2, while fourth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia came through his second five-set match in three days to beat Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina 6-2 3-6 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 6-4.
The match took three hours and 32 minutes.
