A changing of the guard

By Michael Cecilio Sports Central Columnist

Putting a tennis champion's career into perspective is a fairly straightforward thing to do when that player has progressed through the ranks in a linear way. Player starts off as a precocious talent, perhaps goes through a brief sophomore slump, makes that requisite breakthrough, and then proceeds to win almost everything in sight until the onset of retirement kicks in.

The way we discuss their careers and the significant events in their playing life often involves discussion about what they have won, who they have beaten, their most acclaimed matches, and the number of years they were on top.

Tennis champions like Steffi Graf and Pete Sampras follow this linear progression. Their careers had only ever been on the up-and-up and both players had dominated their sport for a consistent length of time. Their careers are pigeonholed as unbridled successes with very few lows and unparalleled highs. They had the steely determination, not only to win all the time, but the determination to be the best for as long as they possibly could. Perfectionists in a sense.

It is more problematic to think about tennis champion Andre Agassi's career in the same light as his long-time rival and his wife. Undoubtedly, Agassi's career has been filled with some breathtaking peaks -- 58 singles titles and eight Grand Slam titles. He not only owns the career Grand Slam, but he stands as the only person to have won all four Grand Slam singles titles on all four surfaces.

As successful as his career has been, his legacy has been littered with some unenviable troughs. It almost seemed that as quickly as he had gotten himself into a dominant position on year, he would fizzle the next and fizzle he did in 1997 when he had reached the ebb of his career by falling well out of the Top-100 and was competing in minor league tournaments.

Agassi's career has, by no means, taken on a linear progression and has, by no means, taken a conventional route. Once all his said and done, the champion's legacy will not be hurt by the number of falls he has taken through the years. In fact, it speaks volumes about an Agassi's character -- not simply that he could pick himself up from the "wreckage" and amass some amazing achievements, but it speaks volumes that he could envision the arduous process ahead of him and still be determined to undergo the process.

The unconventional progression of Agassi's career even adds to his enigmatic aura. It brings to light a man who himself has never held a candle to conventional processes. A man who has proverbially "been there, done that," he presents himself with a charming and humble wisdom which is unseen in an environment concerned with agents, sponsorship, and winning ugly.

Perhaps the enigma, the charm, and the humility are the direct results of having seen all ends of the tennis scale -- the highest of highs, the lowest of lows -- sure, early in his career, he was the golden boy of Nick Bolletieri and was treated as such. But there is no doubt that the champion has had to work harder than he ever had before in order to lift himself from his 1997 career crisis -- and yet even harder in order to maintain his position atop the tennis tree.

Last Monday saw Agassi reach the No. 1 position in the ATP Singles Entry Ranking list. Invariably, this makes him the world's No. 1 tennis player, confirming it with a three-set victory over Andy Roddick in the U.S. Clay Court Championships at Houston last week. The fact that Agassi has reached No. 1 could be considered a non-newsworthy item, given the fact the champion has reached No. 1 on so many occasions before. But he has done so this week as the oldest man to have ever reached No. 1.

Considering the abundance of youth in tennis, it is a remarkable feat that a man who has just turned 33 is in the best shape of his career and is setting the tone for the rest of the tour. And for as much success as he had in his earlier days, there is no doubt that Agassi is in the best and most consistent form of his life.

Since his "second-wind breakthrough" in 1998, Agassi has undergone a fitness transformation. The talent has always been there, but fitness and desire issues had waned to a point where Agassi needed to consider a retooling. Five years later, Agassi is perhaps in even better shape. The dominance which he has displayed early on this season is uncanny, having lost just one match this year and having taken the Australian Open with such remarkable ease.

One wonders where to now for Agassi. The unbelievable peaks have usually been followed by undesirable troughs. But one wonders whether Agassi, at 33 years of age and at the tail-end of his career, has experienced too much in order to let issues of waning desire and languishing motivation hurt him the way it did so many times after a successful season. In fact, it can be said that Agassi perhaps wants to achieve even more.

The way he looks at each match with his life on the line says something about the way he approaches this stage of his career. The focus, the seriousness, and the commitment in Agassi's attitude seem to have come with perspective, wisdom, and possibly even fatherhood.

With the shape he is in now and the commitment he has to be better than ever, a season like 1999 is not out of the question when he won two majors, reached another major final, and finished the year No. 1. In fact, with his main competitors often mired by inconsistency or deficiencies on different playing surfaces, and his chief rankings rival, Lleyton Hewitt, deciding to reduce his playing schedule, the No. 1 ranking would probably be on the cards if he was to even just maintain close to his current level for the rest of the season.

Agassi has achieved everything that even the very best players could ever want to achieve. He has done so by undergoing a dramatic transformation from precocious, immature self-indulgent young talent to a well-rounded ambassador and leader for the sport of tennis. To look at old pictures of tapes of the younger Agassi -- pony-tailed hair and extravagant fashion -- you begin to notice that the Agassi of 10 years ago is the antithesis of what he stands for today as a role model, a devoted father and husband, and a committed and dedicated athlete.

The humility with which he speaks is a lesson for his competitors and his fans. Agassi may not have followed a conventional path to lead him to success, but his legacy will probably burn all the more brighter once all is said and done.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.