Related Links: Pete Sampras excited by tennis, not popularity Everything is going right for Agassi Complete ATP coverage Exclusive tennis audio Forum: Will Agassi win the U.S. Open?
	T O P   N E W S

There are plenty of terrific players in men's tennis -- so many that the game's depth can overwhelm an average fan.

Andre Agassi is just one of those players, one of several to have briefly held the No. 1 ranking this year alone.

But make no doubt. There is not a single, more important person to the health of men's tennis than Agassi. Not even Pete Sampras, who's back at No. 1 and might be able to make the upcoming U.S. Open the spot where he wins a record 13th Grand Slam.

When Agassi's game is down, all of men's tennis suffers. A true measure of that is something that could be called the "Wednesday phenomenon."

At any non-Grand Slam tournament with Agassi in the field, his first appearance will be held off until that day, usually at night unless cable television requests his presence for daytime coverage. Even at a tournament with Sampras in the same field, like the ATP Championships earlier this month in Cincinnati, Agassi was the Wednesday Man. Sampras played his first match in the Tuesday night feature slot.

Tournament directors routinely hold their breath, cross all fingers and toes with the fervent hope Agassi will play as deep into their event as possible.

Two summers ago at the ATP stop in Washington, as he came back from injuries and battled a waning interest in his game, Agassi was a Wednesday loser. The tournament lost all of its energy.

Last Sunday, the Legg Mason Classic brimmed with excitement because Agassi had reached the final. When he beat Yevgeny Kafelnikov, it was his 28th victory in his past 32 matches.

Agassi is back. The man who was two points away from losing in the French Open second round held on to reach that final, drop two straight sets to Andrei Medvedev and win the whole thing.

A month later, he was on stadium court at Wimbledon for a final with Sampras. Agassi lost, but it didn't matter, not as far as the game's health is concerned.

"It's easy to turn the switch off. It's not so easy to turn the switch on," Agassi said in Cincinnati. "It's never come easy. It's always been hard work and focus. I've always tried to balance everything in my life. When I wasn't focused on the tennis court, I had my energies elsewhere.

"I think as I turn the switch back on, it appears like it's a lot quicker because all of a sudden results started happening. But people don't realize how long the preparation goes into that being the case."

The maddening thing about Agassi has been his trend to turn the light on and off so readily.

In November 1997, he was ranked No. 141 in the world. Nearly a year later he was ranked No. 4, thanks to a 1998 season in which his match record was 68-18.

At 29 and freshly through the trials of a divorce from actress Brooke Shields, Agassi is assuming an air of maturity. He still describes Shields as his "best friend."

They simply discovered that in their marriage, Agassi ironically was the one to keep feelings and thoughts inside. The early joy of his marriage intruded on his tennis success. The demise of his marriage has sharpened his concentration.

No longer is he hounded by his old "Image is Everything" ad campaign from the early 1990s.

The campaign helped sell cameras. But the slogan haunted Agassi. This was, after all, the central criticism directed his way: When would he develop his considerable substance consistently, rather than be derailed by style?

"Tennis is just one spoke of a very full life, definitely," Agassi said. "I've been happy and miserable playing well -- and not playing well.

"I think one of the things that makes it so tough is that on your way back, you're always aware of where you're not. That's the one aspect of just straight motivation. Do you have the motivation to get back somewhere? That all depends on how much you enjoyed it when you were up there."

Agassi is totally fit now. The old aspersions about a mini-gut from too much fast food are in the past.

Watch him during a practice session with coach Brad Gilbert, and you see someone in peak condition. No gut. No love handles.

Tennis isn't the same when Sampras has to fend off Patrick Rafter or Kafelnikov or Marcelo Rios. When supremacy boils down to Sampras and Agassi, the sport soars. Talk arises about this duel matching the interest Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe used to summon.

To Sampras, this one player's influence is striking.

"Andre definitely brings the people that might not follow tennis to follow tennis," Sampras said before beating Agassi in the Cincinnati semifinal. "And what he did at the French was a huge jolt (to) the game. And for he and I to play weeks later in the (Wimbledon) finals, there's a certain buzz in the game. And he's got a lot to do with that.

"Like at Wimbledon, there's a buzz through the media. There's a buzz in the city. And he's definitely a big reason tennis has kind of come back."

Kafelnikov knows there is trouble brewing in the U.S. Open field.

"There's no question he got his motivation back again," Kafelnikov said of Agassi. "He's on the top of his game at the moment."

Andre Agassi has returned to the hard-hitting style he played when he was younger.(AP)

If Agassi were to face Sampras at the Open, it would happen only in the final. Sampras is the No. 1 seed. Agassi's Legg Mason title helped him clinch the No. 2 seed.

Agassi has lost four matches this summer, three of them to Sampras. The only way to beat Sampras is to find a rare opening, an unusual moment of vulnerability, and capitalize. Otherwise Agassi knows he's likely to have the same result as he did at this summer's finals at Wimbledon and Los Angeles and the semifinals in Cincinnati.

Still, the aura of Flushing Meadows makes for such a charged environment, it might remove what little advantage Sampras has should he and Agassi meet.

"You know," Agassi said, "when I get my eyes fixed on something, I'm usually pretty intense about it."