Andre Agassi's father visits Midtown Palatine

Mike Agassi, father of tennis legend Andre Agassi, was the special guest Saturday, May 15, at a public tennis demonstration featuring some of the area's top junior tennis players, who train at Midtown Athletic Club Palatine.

As father of one of the most recognizable names in tennis, Agassi engaged Midtown's professional tennis staff in a lively discussion on how to turn junior players into tennis stars before conducting a special tennis clinic featuring a select number of Midtown's top junior players.

Before emigrating to the U.S., Mike Agassi was an Iranian boxer, who competed in the 1948 and 1952 Olympic Games. His interests would later turn to designing the most complex and sophisticated tennis ball machines of the era. Mike's first (and most famous) machine was built for his then 8-year-old son, Andre. In his best-selling book entitled "Open," Andre would affectionately call his father's machine, "The Dragon."

The Dragon could deliver 500 balls to different directions and according to a very young Andre, would fire roughly 5,000 balls-a-week at him.

"Many people don't realize that it was at Midtown Tennis Club where Andre Agassi won his very first national tournament and gold ball, emblematic of winning a national event, at age 12," notes Midtown Palatine Tennis Director Todd Johnson.

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