Can Andre have two love games at once?

In the fascinating, ever-twisting and ultimately legendary journey that has been his tennis career, Andre Agassi's personal and professional lives have always seemed to run in opposite directions, rarely if ever finding a happily high equilibrium at the same time.

Early in his career, Agassi's marriage was with stardom, as he cashed in on his jean-shorts-punk-rebel image and, while flashing tremendous talent on the court, not quite attaining his first grand slam title. Only when he came to the place he never loved -- Wimbledon -- did Agassi finally enter the winner's circle, in 1992.

The year-long period from September 1994 to September 1995 marked perhaps the one time in Agassi's career when his frontstage and backstage existences found equal measures of great joy. At a time when Brooke Shields entered his life, Agassi came from nowhere to win the '94 U.S. Open as an unseeded player, then the '95 Australian Open with a newly-bald look he's kept ever since, and then reach the '95 U.S. Open final against Pete Sampras. Agassi was on top of the world.

But then Sampras, in one of the three most significant men's tennis matches of the 1990s (whether it's first, second or third is up for debate, but it has to make the shortest of short lists), dispatched Andre in four sets. Stung by that loss, Agassi -- then living with a celebrity whose star was every bit as great as his was, if not more -- retreated into his relationship, a retreat in the best possible sense of the term. He found happiness, and he tended to his high-profile relationship as eagerly and earnestly as he could. In short, he made a good and properly rooted decision.

Problem was, as is the case with so many famous figures, devotion to personal life caused professional problems for Agassi.

Once a fixture on Super Saturday at the U.S. Open -- at least during all the times in his career when he was locked in -- Agassi couldn't sniff the quarters at Flushing Meadow or any other Grand Slam event. As he neared the big three-oh, or the big three-UH-oh for tennis players (just ask Sampras himself), time was running out on Agassi's career. The legendary status that seemed so attainable in 1989, when he was making French and U.S. Open semis and dueling with the likes of Lendl, Connors and McEnroe, was quickly and unmistakably eluding him.

Sure enough, a sense of urgency about his career -- combined with the fact that Shields' busy life made his marriage a matter of long-distance phone calls and faxes -- simultaneously, eroded Andre's relationship and propelled him to one of the greatest late-career emergences in the history of sport.

While divorce with Shields became a reality, Agassi paid more attention to the relationships he had with his those in his tennis network. Driven by longtime coach Brad Gilbert and personal trainer Gil Reyes, Agassi found a fountain of youth and fierce, focused fitness in his late twenties. And on a June Sunday in Paris in 1999, Andre the Sleeping Giant finally awoke and claimed the tennis world the way many thought he would have done long before.

Down two sets to love against Andre Medvedev in yet another French Open final (Agassi had lost in previous finals to Andres Gomez in 1990 and Jim Courier in '91), it seemed that another shattering loss was about to keep Agassi from attaining ultimate greatness, a distinction reserved for those who maximize their talent and have the Grand Slam titles to match.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to a familiar forum in Agassi's career: he kept grinding. He did what Gilbert, the author of "Winning Ugly," had been telling him to do for a long time. He didn't tank, didn't dump balls into the net, didn't give up on himself. He battled, displaying supreme physical and mental fitness in the process.

He won in five sets, becoming only the fourth player ever to win all four Slam events in the course of his career. What he did, and the way he did it, propelled a stunning autumn renaissance that continues even today.

At every Slam event he enters, Agassi comes in focused. He owns Australia, he was feared at this year's French before a stunning exit in the quarters, and was one game away from reaching the Wimbledon final, only to be denied not by his lack of focus, but by Patrick Rafter's excellence. Agassi, from a pure tennis standpoint, should be the favorite for the 2001 U.S. Open, which starts Monday.

Ah, but now, we have another relationship in Andre's life, actually two: one with Steffi Graf, the other with the baby that will be his first child.

For someone whose many experiences have instilled in him a remarkable scope and depth of perspective, Agassi seems to have found a level of peace -- and a relationship -- that should make him a content and thoughtful person in all of his future responsibilities as a husband, a father and beyond. What Andre Agassi does in these facets of his life are the most important things he needs to focus on.

Let us then ask this question quietly, and in its accordingly muted, diminished and ultimately unimportant place, but let's put it on the table still: does Andre Agassi have the focus needed to win the U.S. Open, which will end just six days before he and Graf tie the knot on Sept. 15?

We'll find out, now, won't we? The intrigue need not be built up to any higher degree.

Even if he doesn't win love games left and right, breezing through opponents on his way to another title, it is this columnist's wish that marriage and fatherhood treat Andre Agassi well. Furthermore, one would like to think that Steffi might ensure that surly or hot-tempered incidents from Andre -- such as in the press room at Roland Garros this year or at the net in the aftermath of his Wimbledon semifinal loss to Pat Rafter -- might be a thing of the past.

Failures on and off the court have marked Andre Agassi's past. He got the tennis renaissance down right; now, Steffi Graf and child will give him a second chance to make his personal life a picture of complete maturity and enduring happiness. May this indeed be the case.