Andre Agassi confirms BBC plan after Andrew Castle exposed ‘weakness’ | Tennis | Sport
Andre Agassi is set to be reunited with Andrew Castle following their apparent on-air spat at Wimbledon. The tennis icon and the BBC commentator were involved in a tense-sounding exchange at last year’s tournament, during which Agassi accused Castle of exposing his “weakness.”
The awkward moment occurred during the semi-final between Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz when Castle repeatedly cut across Agassi to point out celebrities in the Royal Box and challenged the former Wimbledon champion to name some of the VIPs. Agassi responded by telling Castle: “Don’t torture me. Let me finish my point. People watching are watching for tennis, not for this. Do not ask me about people that you show on television because this is my weakness.”
However, it doesn’t appear to have put Agassi off rejoining Castle and BBC commentary for the latter stages of the tournament. The American, who is married to fellow tennis legend Steffi Graf, told The Sun: “I’ll be there for a few days.
“I might do something with BBC at the end, maybe with Tim [Henman] and Andrew for the semis. I haven’t decided if I’m going to watch the final or maybe commentate on it. I don’t know, we’ll play it by ear.”
Agassi, whose two children have left home, added: “We raised our children until we were in that empty-nester phase. So there’s more bandwidth now, and tennis has given me the opportunity to spend those years with my children.
“So any way that I can contribute back is something that I felt committed to, and now I just have more ability to do it.”
He told Betway last year: “That’s the difference between the transcript and the reality; we had a great time. I mean we had a great time. We had a laugh, and they took it out of context. Afterwards, Andre sent me a text, saying what an unbelievable time he’d had and how he enjoyed it.
“We were going to have him for the final but then he went into the Royal Box instead, but he had a great time. We had a series of just amazing texts and messages that we swapped afterwards, and it was fantastic.
“But then you read that he was saying, ‘Just concentrate on the tennis.’ I mean, it was nothing like that in any way, shape or form. He was saying that tongue-in-cheek while smiling at me.
“In the final, I didn’t mention any celebrities at all. None. I mentioned the second row of the Royal Box, which had the former champions in that row and that’s all I mentioned in the final.”
