Agassi’s no to Athens, baby names

“I’m not going to be playing the Olympics,” Agassi said. “I’m going to miss it, but that’s a choice I made long ago.”

Agassi has not played for the US Davis Cup team in several years to focus his body and mind on Grand Slam tennis. Given that, Agassi said he does not feel he could come back and swipe a spot on the US Olympic squad.

“I can’t sit back and say I need to save myself and have the young guys play and then suddenly step up every four years and play for the country,” Agassi said. “I can’t just pick and choose when I want to play for my country.”

Agassi’s status was good news for organisers here, who have the only ATP event opposite the second week of the Olympics. Washington will host the ATP players not in Athens just two weeks before next year’s US Open.

“I suppose it’s going to have an impact on the field,” Agassi said.

Eight-time Grand Slam champion Agassi also admitted that he and Graf still do not know the sex of the baby she is carrying and as a result have not picked out a name for the sibling of their 22-month-old son, Jaden Gil.

“We don’t even know what it’s going to be yet,” Agassi said.

But Agassi and Graf have started narrowing down on the choices of names.

“We’re getting close,” Agassi said. “I feel the pressure building.”

Graf, who won 22 Grand Slam titles, married Agassi in October of 2001. She retired in 1999 after winning the French Open for a sixth time.

Agassi beat Armenia’s Sargis Sagsian 6-3, 6-2 here yesterday to reach the quarter-finals of a hardcourt event he is trying to win for the sixth time.