Agassi, Sampras Finally Foes Again? : Wimbledon: Renewal of rivalry with a title on the line possible in London.

Ahem.

About the eventual meeting of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras in the final of another Grand Slam tournament. . . . OK, so it wasn’t to be at the French Open but it could happen at Wimbledon, which begins today.

It has been an odd season to figure. Only five months ago Agassi and Sampras met in the final of the Australian Open. Both emerged from the tournament having remade themselves and eagerly engaged in good-natured but deadly serious competition for the No. 1 ranking.

At the time, it seemed as if that Agassi-Sampras final would serve as the imprint for the season. Two of tennis’ most dynamic players would wend their way through major tournaments, dispatching challengers at either end of the draw sheet before their inevitable match for the title.

The two opposite but appealing personalities would rejuvenate public interest in tennis.

Life stepped in to ruin a perfectly good scenario.

Sampras has been struggling while his coach and confidante, Tim Gullikson, is being treated for brain tumors. Sampras’ season has been slow to reach high gear. After the loss in Australia, he looked overwhelming in beating Agassi in the final of the Newsweek Champions event at Indian Wells.

But it was the first tournament Sampras won all year. He next met Agassi in the final of the Lipton Championships, and it was Sampras’ turn to be overwhelmed. Add to that his successive first-round exits at Rome and the French Open last month and it began to look as if he would be meeting Agassi at Davis Cup matches, but not in the final of any majors.

Then came the grass-court season. Sampras’ favorite surface has seemed to restore his confidence. Last week, he won the title of the Queens Club tournament, the traditional Wimbledon warmup event.

Agassi’s season has taken the opposite course. He started well and won three titles. Since losing a five-setter to Todd Martin in the fourth round of last year’s Wimbledon, Agassi has lost only one singles match in a Grand Slam event.

That came earlier this month. His defeat in the quarterfinals of the French Open was made all the more painful because of his injury. Agassi strained a hip flexor muscle in his right leg and, briefly, his immediate future was uncertain. Many speculated that he would not even be able to play here, let alone come in top-seeded.

His advisers had little idea how fast he would heal. Now they know. Agassi took four days off after Paris, received treatment in El Paso and was back on a tennis court in 10 days. This, with an injury that an ATP trainer said might take three weeks to overcome.

Agassi’s telescoped rehabilitation was fueled by a pressing time factor. He needed to prepare for Wimbledon.

Agassi practiced with coach Brad Gilbert on the grass courts at Indian Wells, but has played no tournaments on the surface. The draw has helped him. Agassi will be able to work his way into the tournament by facing a qualifier, Andrew Painter of Australia, in the first round.

Sampras is the two-time defending champion and has the more favorable half of the draw. His big test may come in the fourth round, when he is on track to play Frenchman Guy Forget, who gave him a hard time in the Queens Club final. If fourth-seeded Goran Ivanisevic makes it through, he could play Sampras.

Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker has an easy draw, but his body may not allow him to take advantage of it. Becker has been traveling to Germany to receive treatment for a strained muscle in his calf, and the seriousness of the measures he’s taking might indicate the seriousness of the injury.

French Open champion Steffi Graf is top-seeded and the clear favorite among the women, but she’s not without troubles. This time it’s not her back, it’s pain in her right wrist that has sent her--like Becker--shuttling back and forth to Germany for treatment during the past week.

Graf’s chances here are excellent, provided she can overcome a first-round ambush. Last year she lost to Lori McNeil, becoming the first defending women’s champion to lose in the first round.

This year, Graf has drawn 14-year-old prodigy Martina Hingis. Hingis is young, but she’s also fearless and plays a high-risk game. If Graf is at all vulnerable, it will be here.

Fifth-seeded Mary Pierce will be making her Wimbledon debut and is positioned in the more difficult upper half of the draw. The groin injury that Pierce complained about during the French Open is said to be better. However, when it was revealed that she traveled to the United States after her French Open loss and was checked into a hospital for unspecified “tests,” speculation was that Pierce again would find a reason not to play here.

Defending champion Conchita Martinez, seeded third, is in the bottom half, along with Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who is seeded second. Martinez lost to Graf in the semifinals of the French Open and, with the benefit of a new coach and a new outlook, has been the most consistent player on the women’s tour.

As Martinez sees it, the competition is among two women.

“There’s Steffi and me, and after that it would be quite open,” she said. “Really, I don’t know who else could do it. I guess any good serve-and-volleyer could win.”