Andre Agassi is 34. He has lost his hair and at the same time let go of the rebellious image he once cultivated while smashing a tennis ball in the outlandish outfits he used to flaunt. The man with the toothpick legs and the lethal backhand now looks beatific with his bald head and monochromatic ensembles he dons each time he walks out on the court. But while his appearance has changed, Agassi's game has remained strong.

  Second Fiddle?

Last September, he advanced all the way to the U.S. Open and succumbed to the world's most dominant player, Roger Federer. At one point in his career, he would have been facing Pete Sampras, the retired star whose serve-and-volley style netted him a record 14 Grand Slam titles in his career. 

For years, Agassi played second fiddle to Sampras. He lost to his rival in 20 of the 34 matches they played, including the 1999 Wimbledon final and the 1990 U.S. Open final. But Agassi did something Sampras never did. He won all four Grand Slam titles at different points during his career. And that is the true mark o####reat player.  Since the 1950s, only Rod Laver and Roy Emerson have ever accomplished this feat. Laver did it twice during the calendar years of 1962 and 1969, although many argued that his reign in the tennis world occurred when there was decidedly weaker competition.

Agassi, on the other hand, has been able to conquer both clay-court specialists and players with big serves -- not to mention guys who were only able to rule the sport for a short period of time, like Jim Courier. Agassi has a unique ability to adapt his style of play -- something Sampras was never able to do as he repeatedly left Paris with no French Open title in hand. While Sampras excelled on grass and hard courts with a power game, Agassi not only could serve and volley on the fast surfaces but also play baseline-to-baseline on clay.

It's much easier to repeatedly win at the same tournament than go out and conquer one that requires a much different skill set to be victorious. Half of Sampras' 14 Grand Slam championships came at Wimbledon. Agassi, who has eight Grand Slam titles, has had similar success at the Australian Open, but proved he was more well-rounded when he won the French Open in 1999. 

Now, seven years after he won at Roland Garros, Agassi has been pushed to the backburner by Federer, a player who has been compared to Sampras. Certainly, Federer deserves the recognition as Agassi enters the twilight of his career. After all, he went 81-4 and won 35 straight matches in 2005 while racking up two Grand Slam titles. But like Sampras, Federer has yet to win the French Open. Last year, he made it to the semifinals after struggling in previous appearances at Roland Garros and being knocked out of the first round two straight years in 2002 and 2003. His failures in Paris have been surprising, especially for a player who is accustomed to playing on clay courts in his native country Switzerland and has been heralded as a great tactician. But it reinforces the idea that what Agassi did was special and very rare.

And not even Sampras or Federer can take that way from him.