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Agassi Wins Finals Of Mason

August 23, 1999 / 12:58 AM EDT / AP

After Andre Agassi lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the du Maurier Open earlier this month, he was emphatic that he wanted a rematch.

On Sunday, he got his chance and made the most of it.

Agassi, the world's No. 3 player, appeared imposing at times in the Legg Mason Classic championship, dominating Kafelnikov in a 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 victory.

The win was Agassi's record fifth Legg Mason title, accompanying others in 1990, 1991, 1995 and 1998. The tournament's No. 2 seed earned $99,000, while Kafelnikov, the top seed, received $52,000.

Agassi, the world's No. 3 player, also picked up 250 ATP Tour points, to move up to No. 2 in the rankings ahead of Kafelnikov and just behind Pete Sampras.

Since the start of the French Open in May, which he won, Agassi has captured 28 of 32 matches. Three of the losses were to Sampras and the other was to Kafelnikov, who defeated Agassi in the semifinals of the du Maurier Open in early August.

"I knew after the French Open that going into the hard court season that, if I'm playing my best tennis, it's going to happen on the hard courts," Agassi said. "This is perfect, it's perfect going into the U.S. Open."

Kafelnikov was quite complementary of Agassi, the 1994 U.S. Open champion.

"Andre's made so many points this year that we need to play catch up and gain on him," he said. "His ego was very strong today because he wanted revenge for the defeat in Montreal."

Agassi's combination of power and finesse was too much, particularly late in the first set. Trailing 5-4, Agassi held serve using a couple of forehand winners that caught Kafelnikov back on his heels.

After both players held serve, an Agassi unforced error gave Kafelnikov a 3-2 lead in the tiebreak. But Agassi served an ace and then used two backhand winners to go up, 5-3. He won the set on back-to-back unforced errors by Kafelnikov.

"He made a careless error at 3-5, which can happen, and I managed to serve it out there," Agassi said. "That seemed to be a big momentum changer."

Agassi appeared even stronger in the second set, while an out-of-sync Kafelnikov hit lazy shots. Agassi jumped out to a 4-0 lead, breaking Kafelnikov in the second and fourth games. At the same time, Agassi seemed to wear down Kafelnikov, running him from side to side and back and forth.

"I stepped it up another level in the second, and he didn't quite answer what was required," Agassi said. "I just played real well. All of sudden, I got two breaks. It's tough to recover from that."