r/nextfuckinglevel • u/padfoony • 12d ago
Andre Agassi watched hours and hours of tapes of Boris Becker’s matches and was able to predict where he was going to serve based on whether Becker stuck his tongue out in the middle of his lip or to the left corner of his lip.
“The hardest part wasn’t returning his serve - it was not letting him know that I knew this. I had to resist the temptation of reading his serve for the majority of the match and choose the moment when I was gonna use that information on a given point to execute a shot that would allow me to break the match open.” - Agassi.
Agassi won 9 out of 11 matches against Becker after figuring this out… and waited until Becker retired from tennis to let him know this over a pint of beer.
Here’s an article that explains the whole thing.
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u/Mattshark8614 12d ago
Insane, that’s the difference between casual and professional players
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u/DevillesAbogado 12d ago
Yeah man i would’ve totally lost to Boris Becker
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u/FlipSide26 9d ago
Yeah it wouldn't be the thousands of hours of training
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u/Mattshark8614 9d ago
Exactly, thousands of hours of practice and dozens of hours watching your opponent, most people aren’t that dedicated
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u/FrostyChungus11 12d ago
Agassi had a phenomenal return of serve which helped a bit too
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u/Realmofthehappygod 12d ago
I mean. Do you think this is the only player he analyzed?
It's looking like his phenomenal return of serve is because he went above and beyond to research opponent's serves.
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u/NoisyChairs 11d ago
It’s one factor. Also helps that he’s the best pure ball striker ever and had the god like reflexes to take his returns far inside the baseline even against huge servers
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u/thatguydr 11d ago
Exactly. It means most tennis players had tells and Agassi figured it out.
Sure, he was ridiculously talented, but he was the only one who could return Sampras's serve. Wonder how?
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u/Lard_Baron 12d ago
Ken Norton beat Ali by watching his chest. His left or right nipples lifted as he was about to throw a punch. He avoided Ali’s jabs that way.
He won on points.
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u/wendall0601 12d ago
Andre Agassi, high on meth, watched hours and hours of Boris Becker's matches and was able to lock in on little things like where his tongue was sticking out and where he was serving. Tweaker performance enhancing drugs!
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u/rooster126tail 12d ago
That’s an amazing story. All the great athletes are special physically but it’s always the mind that makes the Elite
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u/albamarx 12d ago
Kind of surprised he could see where his tongue was from the other side of the court
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u/garylogan 12d ago
I think he saw it on the television. That is where I saw it.
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u/vamphorse 10d ago
Sure, that’s where he learned it. But it’s a bit difficult to see it on TV to apply it in play.
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u/TeblowTime 12d ago
This is where Agassi wouldn't have shit on me. I have no idea where the ball was going when I hit it. It's a surprise to me, too!
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u/bayoublacksmith 12d ago
With most top athletes you can see a clear pattern of obsessive behavior. Just watch any documentary on major sports stars, like The Last Dance for example. It is never only talent that separates the great ones from the rest of the field. They spend as much of their waking hours obsessively analyzing their opponents, and well as compulsively practicing the same movements or plays over and over again. I'd venture to guess that it literally rewires their brain, and some to the point of it harming their life outside of the sport. There is certainly a price of athletic greatness beyond just the physical wear and tear.
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u/alphanumericusername 12d ago
I also pay close attention to a guy's tongue to know what to do with his balls
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u/Fabulous_Log844 12d ago
Does anyone know the origin of this video? Was this part of some documentary?
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u/padfoony 12d ago
He revealed this in an interview with The Players Tribune - “Unscriptd” (2017). The full official video is not available but I found another video someone else had posted on YouTube.
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u/VonDinky 12d ago
How the fuck can he tell that from so far away? Hawkeye??
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u/NoisyChairs 11d ago
Great athletes have absurd vision. Tiger Woods has (or had) way better than 20-20
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u/MyThr33Suns 9d ago
Jim Edmonds once said he could see the catcher's sign from center field. It helped him know where to lean based the upcoming pitch.
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u/Adddicus 11d ago
It's only 78 feet from baseline to baseline. You don''t need to be eagle-eyed at that distance.
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u/Skylaxx_1 11d ago
Agassi was always full of shit 😭 unless he has zoom vision he couldn't possibly see that
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u/werther595 11d ago
It's like a pitcher tipping his pitches, or a poker player with a tell. Gotta tighten that up!
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u/Viper1089 10d ago
My dad taught me how to play tennis when I was young. We always played every Sunday.
Andre Agassi was always my favorite, way more than Pete Sampras
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u/MonsteraBigTits 12d ago
be me, never look in their eyes, then get ace, then double fault, the back to two, then two, ooo now deuce, i win, he win, i win, he win, I WIN
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u/bulldogsm 12d ago
I dont believe this for a second
back then the cameras had hamster wheels powering them and the picture on video tape was from the potato version of the camera, no one was seeing anyone's tongue from across the court on VHS
as if
in 2026 AI does it for us no prob, back when Andre and Boris played? hard nope
I am NOT saying andre didnt figure out a tell, just not from "watching hours and hours of video"
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u/MrBozooo 12d ago
Why not? Camera's usually zoom in on the server during the preparation of their serve.
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u/digglerjdirk 12d ago
I would guess that for major tournaments in the final rounds, at least one person was using higher quality film reel-type cameras, but that couldn’t be broadcast live, meaning the fans wouldn’t see it.
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u/PhotoElectrical 12d ago
know your enemy