Sparkling twilight

With Andre Agassi, dominance was expected at this year's United States Open. Though past the big three-oh, Agassi is fit as a fiddle and still mowing down opponents with his relentless groundstrokes.

In Monday's fourth round match at the USTA National Tennis Center, Agassi dispatched with astonishing ease the man who -- in the same round -- knocked Pete Sampras off his perch at Wimbledon -- Roger Federer. Steffi's husband-to-be is right on schedule.

With Pete Sampras, dominance seemed to be a forgotten entity, except for his opponents, including Federer, and anyone else, who stood in Sampras' way of any kind of tournament title in the past 13 months since his 13th slam title at Wimbledon in 2000. For the No. 10 seed at the Open, a respectable fourth round showing seemed to be his most likely result, especially with a looming confrontation against Patrick Rafter, the 2001 Wimbledon finalist, who put together an exceptional summer hardcourt season, reaching the finals of three tournaments and winning one.

Yet, even before his date with Rafter became an official reality, something magical happened on Saturday at Arthur Ashe Stadium that sowed the seeds of what could be an unforgettable Open -- for Sampras, the tennis community, and the American sporting public.

On Saturday, in the third round against the young and hard-hitting Russian, Mikhail Youzhny, Sampras figured to have a tough time, just as he did in the first round against another free-flowing, big-hitting bomber, Julien Boutter. Against Boutter, Sampras won all three sets by razor close margins, and withstood a number of blistering passes from the Frenchman. Against Youzhny, a player with even more game than Boutter, there was no reason to expect anything different.

However, Youzhny never got into a groove with his passing shots at any point in the match. This gave Sampras a huge lift in his service games, but more importantly, it seemed to give Pistol Pete an extremely aggressive and confident mentality as a returner and ballstriker from the baseline. For the first time in a while, Sampras was witnessed in a tennis match -- heavens! --actually cracking winners from the ground! Positive body language defined Sampras' frame for the first time in a long time.

Entering his fourth-round match against Rafter, the talk of Flushing Meadows was if Sampras could sustain his confident play. The answer was a resounding no -- Sampras didn't sustain his solid level of play from Saturday. Instead, he reattained the rarified air of excellence that made him greater than any other player of his time, including even Agassi.

In the first two sets, while Rafter uncharacteristically butchered a number of easy volleys, Sampras authoritatively put his stamp on the match, and not with his serve, either. Sure, Sampras held in every service game through the first two sets, but he broke Rafter -- on the scoreboard and in Rafter's mind -- with the crackling backhand that made him so devastating at his zenith in the mid-to-late 1990s. And on the occasions that demanded it, Sampras was able to change pace and hit running crosscourt topspin backhands for winners that were just as pretty and impressive as the ones he got from his line-drive lasers. Before Rafter could blink, Sampras had a 6-3, 6-2 lead.

Showing all the grit that has made him a great champion (of two U.S. Opens), an unparalleled sportsman, and a deserving fan favorite, Rafter took command of his serve and defused Sampras' return game, winning an exceptional third set in a tiebreak. But, in the fourth set, after coasting along for nine games on serve, Rafter, down 4-5 (remember how important it is to serve first in a set in men's tennis?), played a handful of loose points. After having to stave off two match points, Rafter faced a third.

On this point, Sampras displayed almost everything in his arsenal -- all the instantly noticeable skills, blended together in perfect harmony -- that made him such a well-rounded tennis champion at the height of his powers: first, a perfect slice backhand off Rafter's wide-angle serve; then, exceptional footspeed to get to Rafter's volley and put the Aussie at a disadvantage; third, a sharp mind, as he cemented his territorial advantage by approaching the net while Rafter scrambled backward to retrieve Sampras' previous shot; and finally, an athletic, picture-perfect overhead -- the best of his era -- to put his gallant opponent away.

It was a sparkling late-summer afternoon in the big city; more than that, however, it was an afternoon of sparkling tennis. Rafter's lamentably disappearing serve-and-volley style had its own place on this Labor Day -- especially since there are no guarantees about Rafter's future in the sport. But beyond Rafter's elegance and the expected brilliance of Andre Agassi as well, it was the magical, blast-from-the-past renaissance of Pistol Pete Sampras that carried the day, and which has this U.S. Open set up for the greatest quarterfinal match in its history, in the Open era or otherwise.

Think about it: when did John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker, ever meet in the U.S. Open quarters -- or any Grand Slam quarterfinal, for that matter -- with so much intrigue?

Agassi and Sampras have forged their own legendary rivalry, and their own legendary places in the tennis pantheon. Within that rivalry, the most historically significant matches in their rivalry -- two out of three, I would venture to say -- came in the Open.

In 1990, the tennis cognoscenti -- in America and around the world -- expected Agassi to finally claim what had eluded him for a few years: his first slam title, in the Open final that year.

Instead, a gangly kid from California who dispatched an aging graybeard named John McEnroe in the semis (McEnroe's twilight run was followed by Jimmy Connors' run to the semis in 1991 at the age of 39), promptly stormed Agassi in the final with his effortlessly fluid and fast serve. Pete Sampras had beaten his junior rival from Vegas to the winner's circle in a major.

Five years later, in the next to last men's final played at Louis Armstrong Stadium, Agassi and Sampras crossed paths again at the Open, with the number one ranking in the world at stake and the fires of their rivalry burning at full flame. Agassi had won the '94 Open and beat Sampras in the '95 Australian Open final; meanwhile, Sampras was just two months removed from his third straight Wimbledon. This was -- well, how else can you really describe it? -- a classic confrontation.

In a match that featured one of the very best points in tennis history, a 22-stroke doozy won by Sampras, Pistol Pete reaffirmed his number one status -- in the world and against his rival -- with a hard-fought four-set victory. Beyond that, the disappointing outcome shattered Agassi's confidence, for a number of years, as Agassi wouldn't reach another Grand Slam final until the 1999 French Open. On a number of levels, that match -- like the one in 1990 -- had long-term historical resonance throughout men's tennis and the Sampras-Agassi rivalry.

Six years after that match, Sampras and Agassi will face off for the first time in Arthur Ashe Stadium. An electric New York crowd in excess of 23,000 will witness a September showdown under the lights between two players who are approaching the autumn of their careers. However, after witnessing the tennis they produced on Labor Day, and particularly the string virtuosity of Sampras, the tennis community won't be seeing two players whose excellence is necessarily a thing of the past.

They met at the beginning of their blossoming careers. They met at a crossroads during the height of their athletic powers. Now, once more -- and with a lot of high-voltage feeling in prime time -- Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras will meet. It won't be a Grand Slam final, but for two American tennis legends to meet in the U.S. Open at this point of their careers is a tennis treat more worthy of a final-level atmosphere than anything else Super Saturday could ever hope to provide.

The battle lines are set: Will Agassi's rock-solid consistency absorb Sampras' best punches and biggest serves, wearing out Pete with his superior fitness? Or will Sampras, the best clutch player and clutch server of his time, rise to the occasion on big points, win a few tiebreaks, and continue an unexpected march to glory -- all the way to a 14th slam title that would double Agassi's total?

Will Agassi's expected excellence reign supreme, or can Sampras yet again display the positive body language and magical, backhand-cracking mojo that carried him past Rafter on Monday -- and to 13 major titles?

The urgency, intensity and quality promised by this Sampras-Agassi clash are beyond anything I've felt in big-time tennis in quite some time, perhaps not since Andre and Pete's heavyweight bout in the '99 Wimbledon final, won by Sampras in straight sets. What's different about this match, however, is that a tennis buzz of such astronomic proportions might never be felt again -- at least in the context of the Sampras-Agassi rivalry.

Sampras-Agassi at the Open, Part III -- this one deserves Roman numerals. Don't expect a fourth episode in 2005 or thereabouts, because this one has the finality of a final. Given the track record of their rivalry in Flushing Meadows, don't expect either player, especially the recently shaky Sampras, to disappoint.

It's time for the irresistible serving force to face the immovable returning object one more time.

Does the term "instant classic" sound appropriate?