Old legends don't fade away, they just excel

New York, New York, is -- as the song goes -- a helluva town for performers the world over.

New York is a performer's place, a cultural and social mecca where, if you got game ... or voice ... or charisma ... or talent, you can find a stage -- whatever stage it might be -- and display your excellence before adoring crowds. Perform well in New York, and you know you've made it, that -- in your own field of expertise or talent -- you've become, in a certain way, the center of the universe.

It was interesting, then, that USA commentators Ted Robinson and John McEnroe, who broadcast all of the night matches at the U.S. Open for the cable network, made light of the fact that daytime USA play-by-play man Bill Macatee had tickets to Mel Brooks' phenomenally popular runaway hit and Tony Award-winning sensation, The Producers, on the same night as the quarterfinal (emphasize FINAL) match between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.

Poor Mr. Macatee -- assuming he did keep his engagement on Broadway.

On Wednesday night, the faces and reactions of a big New York crowd -- the biggest ever to (truly) jam Arthur Ashe Stadium in the giant tennis joint's five-year history -- told the real story of the Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi epic: that it was the biggest ticket in the big city, the performance to shame other show-stoppers, the heavyweight fight that -- contrary to Spike Lee's words in an early-match interview with USA's Michael Barkand -- was better than Ali-Frazier.

What made it apparent that Sampras-Agassi at the Open, Part III, was a performance of performances in the performer's city?

Could it have been when the crowd resonated with cheers of "Go, Pete!" and "Go, Andre!" -- the kinds of feisty solo chants normally reserved for late-match break points and match points -- IN THE SECOND GAME OF THE MATCH?

Could it have been the continuous audible gasps that rippled through the massive throng on almost every point?

Could it have been the deafening roars that did accompany any of the (few) break points throughout the match?

Could it have been the maniacal shouts of entertained exhilaration that followed ... yes ... double faults by both players in the tiebreaks? (Andre doubled at 7-6 in the first-set breaker; Pete did so at 6-4 in the fourth set breaker on his second of three match points.)

Could it have been the "I-have-seen-the-face-of-God-and-lived-to-tell-about-it" look of utter astonishment on the face of Mike Wallace, the octogenarian journalist who has seen and done just about everything (Charles Gibson, another longtime journalist and no spring chicken to the workings of the world, had an equally priceless and ghost-white expression)--AFTER MIDNIGHT IN A TENNIS STADIUM?

Or, could it have been a simultaneously electrifying and overwhelming final-curtain-type ovation -- a Metropolitan Opera magnificent, a Producers praisefest--for Pete and Andre ... BEFORE they embarked on their fourth tiebreaker of their epic two days' journey into night?

What wasn't special about this match? What wasn't theatrical about this match? What wasn't dramatic about this match? What wasn't entertaining about this match? What was anything less than excellent? What was anything below superior?

One wore black, the other white. One slugged (and served), the other served (and slugged). One attacked, the other counterpunched. Yet, neither player broke or was broken; neither player overwhelmed or became overwhelmed.

This wasn't Masterpiece Theatre, ladies and gentlemen, because two masters and two masterworks were on display at the USTA National Tennis Center. Different and complementary, yet ultimately providing tennis from Valhalla.

To say that this was tennis of the gods would be one of the few appropriate ways in which to characterize Sampras-Agassi III. First and obviously, this was tennis that ordinary human beings, mere mortals, could never hope to produce. Secondly, the combination of Sampras' and Agassi's talents represent the totality of scope and power that is consistent with any divine concept or entity.

But what ultimately made -- and will continue to reaffirm -- Sampras-Agassi III as the all-eclipsing tennis match of all time, is the fact that it came at a time when the careers of tennis players might not die, but certainly fade away.

Age 30 is supposed to represent a time in a tennis player's life when everything -- skills, reflexes, fitness, consistency -- deteriorates to some degree.

On Wednesday night, consider the following: Agassi, never considered a great server, pounded 18 aces and held all 24 of his service games against an opponent who had rediscovered his lethal, crackling groundies from both sides.

To put it bluntly but accurately, this was the best serving game of Andre Agassi's entire tennis-playing life. Combining his tremendous serving with all of his exceptional skills from the ground, it is fair to contend that this was the most complete, mature and well-rounded match Agassi has ever, ever played. EVER!

And he lost.

He lost because his opponent, while not the best player ever (Rod Laver merits that honor, with Bjorn Borg second; then we can put Andre Agassi's opponent in third place on the super-short short-list), can claim to be the best tennis player who ever walked the face of God's green (or hardcourt) earth in these two categories: tiebreak/big point player, and second serve.

No human being who ever picked up a racket has ever been better at winning big points -- within tiebreaks or without -- or delivering clutch second serves than one Pistol Pete Sampras. And when Sampras did blow three set points and the first-set tiebreaker, he didn't cave to the fitter Agassi; he won the next three tiebreakers, as if to affirm his supremacy in that area. This mind-boggling ability of Pete to answer back was also displayed on his second serves: for every time a second serve brought a double fault on a fairly big point, Pete would come right back with a second-serve ace or service winner on an even bigger point.

Performers of all kinds, as great and as legendary as they might be, are not supposed to be at their lifetime best -- the absolute summit of their careers -- at an age when virtually all of their contemporaries naturally, and acceptably, dwell in a world of ever-so-slight but perceptible deterioration.

On a Wednesday night in September in the ultimate performer's city, Arthur Ashe -- being the person and performer he was -- must have touched the two men that he at times counseled and coached, for the performance given by Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi was nothing short of heaven-kissed and heaven-sent.

Sampras and Agassi showed not the slightest trace of deterioration in their tennis games at ages (30 and 31), when many tennis players themselves are put out to pasture. To make their truly divine epic all the more amazing, Sampras and Agassi personally know about the nature of the tennis beast. Agassi's career was considered done when he drifted aimlessly in 1998 at age 28. Sampras's career obits were being written all the way up to his third-round match at the Open last Saturday.

Pete Sampras. Andre Agassi. Their third U.S. Open match, 11 years after the first, was the greatest thing ever seen on a tennis court.

If Mike Wallace was moved to an expression of reverent humility, how could anyone else not be? This performance of performances in the performer's city will never fade away.