Tennis: Agassi ends losing streak

Andre Agassi, the former world No 1, has to stretch on his way to ending a losing streak of more than three months by beating the Italian Davide Sanguinetti 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in the RCA Championships in Indianapolis.

The 14th seed, now down to a world ranking of 74, ended a lamentable sequence of seven consecutive opening-match defeats on the ATP Tour this year with Monday's win over the world number 93, who was competing in his first hard-court match of the year.

Agassi was broken in the first set, but lifted his game to break straight back against the 24-year-old Italian. The American dropped a second set which included five breaks of serve, but recovered from a 3-0 deficit in the third set to win in 1hr 55min.

Agassi said: "You've got to start somewhere... I've been working hard on movement. I was able to go from being a Sherman tank to really covering some real estate out there in the space of a few days."

In this tournament last year Agassi was disqualified after persistently swearing and hitting a ball into the stands.

Photograph: Tom Russo/Associated Press