Jaden Agassi, the son of a pair of International Tennis Hall of Famers, will pitch for Germany at the World Baseball Classic qualifiers next month in Arizona.

The 23-year-old is the son of tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf.

Hew started playing baseball as a child, and chose it over the family business – leading to his upcoming international debut in Tucson.

“Agassi is a very tennis last name, of course,” Jaden told WKBN News in Youngstown, Ohio, at the weekend.

“The goal is to try to make it a baseball one.”

Andre Agassi won 60 career titles, including eight grand slams, while Graff won 107 titles, including 22 slams. Both also won Olympic gold medals.

“I started playing baseball when I was six years old in T-ball,” Agassi, 23, told MLB.com in a phone interview.

“I loved it. I’ve picked up a tennis racquet a good amount, but it was always hard for me to keep that ball in between the lines. I just wanted to hit that thing as far as I could. Baseball had my love since day one.”

Neither of his Las Vegas-based parents is unfamiliar with baseball – in fact, in Europe, tennis is sometimes considered a gateway to the sport.

Agassi senior famously starred in a 2004 TV advertisement, playing the backstop for the Red Sox.

“He did a Nike commercial way back, where he’s taking batting practice at Fenway, which is funny. He treats it like a backhand and crushes it,” Jaden said.

But he considers he has inherited his mother’s temperament.

“I think I’m a lot like my mom in the sense of my composure,” he said.

“I’ve always been just very composed and cool, calm and collected out there. I try to have a short memory. My mindset is the next pitch is the most important one.”

A baby Jaden with his parents in Russia in 2002. Photo: AAP

Agassi has also spoken previously of considering tennis a lonely sport.

“Tennis? I just think we’ve had enough, quite honestly. It’s a weird sport. We don’t see too many second-generation players. For us, it’s about raising our children in a way we can share in their life and not always worry about their life,” he said in a 2011 interview.

“It’s lonely … no one to talk to, no one to pass the ball to.”

Graf said once of the couple’s children, Jaden and his younger sister Jaz, that “we never really introduced tennis so much into their lives”.

“They’ve chosen other things,” she said.

Graf was born and raised in Germany, making Jaden eligible to play in the WBC qualifier for her homeland.

“I’m so excited,” he said.

“It’s been a dream of mine since I was a little boy to compete on an international scale. [I want to] make my mom proud, make Germany proud and do them right.”

The younger Agassi played his developmental baseball in Las Vegas before pitching in college at Southern California.

Germany, Brazil, Colombia and China will compete in Tucson for a spot in the 2026 WBC, with the top two teams qualifying.

-with AAP