Agassi Gains Greatness

"Image is everything," the image peering from beneath long locks told us in one of his many endorsements. For a long time Andre Agassi epitomized the fierce hype but false hope of so many of today's sports stars: He had the name, he didn't have the game.

He does now.

At this year's Australian Open, on a court named for Aussie tennis great Rod Laver, Agassi finished off a run through tennis' four major tournaments as impressive for its time as Laver's sweep of the Grand Slams in 1969.

In the four most recent majors, Agassi won the Australian Open, won the U.S. Open, lost in the Wimbledon finals to Pete Sampras and won the French Open.

Agassi stands alone atop the tennis mountain right now and is challenging Sampras for the mantle of greatest player of their time. Sampras has won 12 Slams in his career (six at Wimbledon), a record he shares with Roy Emerson.

With a total of six Slams now, Agassi probably won't catch him. But with his victory in last year's French Open, he has done something Sampras hasn't done; something Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe never did; and that's win each of the Grand Slam tournaments at least once in his career.

Not bad for a guy who never lacked talent but who early in his career lacked the heart, the stamina or the will to win. Andre "Gagassi" choked away big matches. Andre "Bagassi" threw away others if undue effort was required.

Not bad for a guy who in 1995 rose to number one, took home the U.S. Open winner's trophy and actress Brooke Shields too. Ah, marriage is bliss. As soon as he took the plunge his tennis ranking did too. All the way to 141 in the world. He had to play events on something called the Challenger Tour to work back into big time tennis. Imagine Mark McGwire slumping so badly that he had to go play for the Durham Bulls (There really is such a team, you know.) and you have the baseball equivalent of what Agassi had to do.

And he came all the way back, capping his comeback last year by reclaiming the world's top ranking.

He might always be more famous for his commercials than for his tennis. Maybe image is everything. But our image of Andre Agassi should look a lot different now.

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