Andre Agassi

Tennis great Andre Agassi and officials of a California real estate company created an unusual joint venture last year to help successful charter schools find affordable and sustainable buildings. On Tuesday, they will celebrate their first charter-school investment: KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy at 2409 W. Westmoreland St. in North Philadelphia's Tioga section. "KIPP is the gold standard when it comes to operating charter schools and educating these kids," Agassi said in an interview Monday.

Top tennis players don't say it, but they know it will happen. In the backs of their minds, feared almost as much as shin splints and the loss of lucrative clothing contracts, is the knowledge that one high seed is doomed to go down in the first round of the U.S. Open. Last year, the Round 1 victim was top-seeded Stefan Edberg, who lost to Alexander Volkov. Yesterday, it was Andre Agassi's turn to be doused in the dunk tank. Aaron Krickstein, an Open semifinalist two years ago but now ranked No. 47 in the world, performed this year's Volkov as he toppled the eighth-seeded Agassi, 7-5, 7-6 (7-3)

Boris Becker had never been beaten like this before. He didn't believe anyone could beat him on Centre Court at Wimbledon - not from the baseline. But yesterday, Andre Agassi did just that. And mentioned afterward how a baseliner is two matches away from winning Wimbledon. Agassi put the 1985, '86 and '89 champion away with astonishing ease in the completion of their quarterfinal match, which had been suspended because of rain on Wednesday. "I have not seen anybody on grass playing that kind of tennis - I mean, from the back," the fourth-seeded Becker said after Agassi's 4-6, 6-2, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory.

This loss pierced through Andre Agassi's carefully crafted image. It made the rock-star hair and flamboyant clothes look like cheap props. It brought tears to his eyes and made him voice that thing he dislikes so much - self- doubt. Over the course of a long afternoon at the French Open, Agassi had undergone a slow, brutal transformation. He began yesterday's championship final a flashy, adroit tennis player, clearly the master of his opponent. He ended it a wreck. He wrecked on fellow American Jim Courier, who can perform not one tennis skill as well as Agassi.

First, Pete Sampras produced his Wimbledon threepeat. Now, he has three U.S. Open titles. Talk about a summer to remember . . . It's time people appreciated this superb athlete, who some observers believe already is the greatest tennis player of all time. Sampras yesterday ended top-seeded Andre Agassi's 26-match summer winning streak with an efficient, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 victory in the Open final. The second-seeded Sampras gained his seventh Grand Slam title. He is only the seventh player to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the same year (John McEnroe was the last, in 1984)

Andre Agassi runs down the lob of Alex Corretja, chases the ball to the baseline, flips the racket over his shoulder so hard you can hear the wrists snap at the top of the stadium and the ball zooms too fast to see, but fast enough to hear. It seems to leave skid marks on the top of the net. Corretja can't find the ball. It is a firecracker shot, and 19,000 people leap to their feet. Agassi raises his arms. The match is over, almost. This point gives Agassi a 5-0, 30-40 lead in the fourth set with Corretja serving.

Roger Federer turned 30 on Aug. 8. He celebrated by publicly thanking his longtime fans and supporters on his website. That was probably followed by 500 forehands, 500 backhands, and twice as many practice serves. To many of us, Father Time is getting the stiff knee working in the morning so we can walk to the sink to brush our teeth. To Federer, it is that split second that makes the backhand go wide. For his mental well-being, Federer had to walk past his 30th birthday as if it were a crack in the sidewalk.

Pretty in pink, that was Andre Agassi last night. Agassi, unseeded and unsure of how long he can last at this U.S. Open, came out wearing a pink shirt on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court and left wearing a large smile after a 6-1, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win over wild-card entry Steve Campbell. When he was introduced, Agassi was greeted lukewarmly by a crowd that is normally boisterously on his side. But it was reported in a New York paper yesterday that Agassi left the National Tennis Center in a snit Monday night and refused to appear at the gathering of past U.S. Open champions in honor of Ashe because someone had inadvertently forgotten to mention Agassi at a champions dinner earlier Monday.

Those who witness Saturday night's ATP Champions Tour Shootout at the Wells Fargo Center will see something most U.S. tennis fans haven't over the last decade - American men with Grand Slam titles. The fab four competing here - Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, and Jimmy Connors - combined to capture 34 majors. That's 34 more than U.S. males have won since 2003, when Andy Roddick took the U.S. Open. Whether this drought is the result of cyclical factors, the game's globalization or something systemic has become a popular topic of tennis debate and one that defies easy answers.

One match doesn't prove much, but for one night Andre Agassi gave his fans reason to hope. The unseeded Agassi toyed with wild-card entry Steve Campbell for two sets, then settled for a 6-1, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 victory last night on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court. Campbell, a Detroit resident ranked No. 130, wasn't up to testing Agassi. The 26-year-old Rice University graduate didn't hold serve until the 10th game of the match. Campbell had only six winners in the first two sets, whereas Agassi had 22. Agassi was making his first appearance in a Grand Slam since last year's Open, when he lost to Michael Chang in a semifinal.

Tennis great Andre Agassi and officials of a California real estate company created an unusual joint venture last year to help successful charter schools find affordable and sustainable buildings. On Tuesday, they will celebrate their first charter-school investment: KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy at 2409 W. Westmoreland St. in North Philadelphia's Tioga section. "KIPP is the gold standard when it comes to operating charter schools and educating these kids," Agassi said in an interview Monday.

Those who witness Saturday night's ATP Champions Tour Shootout at the Wells Fargo Center will see something most U.S. tennis fans haven't over the last decade - American men with Grand Slam titles. The fab four competing here - Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, and Jimmy Connors - combined to capture 34 majors. That's 34 more than U.S. males have won since 2003, when Andy Roddick took the U.S. Open. Whether this drought is the result of cyclical factors, the game's globalization or something systemic has become a popular topic of tennis debate and one that defies easy answers.

Roger Federer turned 30 on Aug. 8. He celebrated by publicly thanking his longtime fans and supporters on his website. That was probably followed by 500 forehands, 500 backhands, and twice as many practice serves. To many of us, Father Time is getting the stiff knee working in the morning so we can walk to the sink to brush our teeth. To Federer, it is that split second that makes the backhand go wide. For his mental well-being, Federer had to walk past his 30th birthday as if it were a crack in the sidewalk.

Andre Agassi has battled the champions of three eras - Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl - and now he puts Roger Federer above them all. "He's the best I've ever played against," Agassi said after falling to Federer 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1 yesterday in the U.S. Open final. "Pete was great. No question. But there was a place to get to with Pete. You knew what you had to do. If you do it, it could be on your terms. There's no such place like that with Roger.

It was a tedious day punctuated by a lot of hanging around watching the rain at the French Open yesterday, until tournament officials finally admitted defeat and sent everyone home. The only significant match to get under way at Roland Garros Stadium during the day was the quarterfinal contest between fourth-seeded Andre Agassi and 11th-seeded Juan Carlos Ferrero. By the time play was abandoned in the early evening, the American was trailing by a set and a game. Agassi, the 1999 French Open champion, stepped onto the court with Ferrero an hour late when a powerful thunderstorm finally subsided.

The grimace on Lindsay Davenport's usually perky face showed just how difficult it is to defend a title. Especially a Wimbledon singles title. During a changeover in her second-round match against Elena Likhovtseva yesterday, Davenport sat, racket resting between her legs, with her eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. She intermittently looked disinterested, mortified, and maddened by her erratic play. But after trailing Likhovtseva by 3-0 and 40-15 in the third set, and teetering on the brink of elimination, she played six nearly perfect games to survive, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, and advance, like defending men's titlist Pete Sampras, to the third round.

There is a tiny rumbling now. You know, the kind when a couple of glasses clink together just before the earthquake hits. Andre Agassi won the first set of his second match at the U.S. Open in 21 minutes yesterday. He won the match in 1 hour, 20 minutes, against a man who was a French Open quarterfinalist two years ago. And Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the tournament's No. 3 seed, the man most people expected to take Agassi out in the third round, was upset yesterday. What do you know? And there is a first big step now, the first glimpse of the raw power and sheer exuberance that make up the tennis game of Venus Williams.

One match doesn't prove much, but for one night Andre Agassi gave his fans reason to hope. The unseeded Agassi toyed with wild-card entry Steve Campbell for two sets, then settled for a 6-1, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 victory last night on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court. Campbell, a Detroit resident ranked No. 130, wasn't up to testing Agassi. The 26-year-old Rice University graduate didn't hold serve until the 10th game of the match. Campbell had only six winners in the first two sets, whereas Agassi had 22. Agassi was making his first appearance in a Grand Slam since last year's Open, when he lost to Michael Chang in a semifinal.

Pretty in pink, that was Andre Agassi last night. Agassi, unseeded and unsure of how long he can last at this U.S. Open, came out wearing a pink shirt on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court and left wearing a large smile after a 6-1, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win over wild-card entry Steve Campbell. When he was introduced, Agassi was greeted lukewarmly by a crowd that is normally boisterously on his side. But it was reported in a New York paper yesterday that Agassi left the National Tennis Center in a snit Monday night and refused to appear at the gathering of past U.S. Open champions in honor of Ashe because someone had inadvertently forgotten to mention Agassi at a champions dinner earlier Monday.

Andre Agassi walks onto the court. His eyes are downcast, his head is down, his shoulders are drawn. The simple act of taking rackets out of his bag seems beyond him. He fumbles, and the rackets seem unwilling to come out, stuck deep inside the bag. That's how it is with Agassi, too, these days. His game - his dynamic, enthralling, powerful, creative tennis game - is stuck deep inside him. When the 1997 U.S. Open begins Monday at the USTA National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., America's most popular player will stumble in as a little lost boy, looking for his confidence, for his timing, for his strokes, for himself.