After Challengers, Agassi Is Geared Up for Latest Challenge

The wild ride that is Andre Agassi’s career has just splashed through the water trough at the bottom and is inching its way back up the artificial mountain. No matter the sheerness of the plummet, Agassi keeps climbing into the front car, and insists on riding with his hands in the air.

This is how it has always been with tennis’ most flamboyant, mercurial and comeback-prone talent. Far from fearing change, Agassi rushes forward and embraces it.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Agassi said, agreeing with the imagery. “This feels very familiar to me. Everybody is viewing this as a comeback. I’m just going back to work with passion again. I’ve felt this feeling a number of times. Every time it changes, and every time it gets more difficult.”

Agassi, 27, is on the cusp of his umpteenth comeback and is hoping that the Australian Open will be the momentum that winches his career upward. He squeezed past qualifier Marzio Martelli of Italy in the first round and today returned to the big time--playing 16th-seeded Albert Costa on center court in the featured night match.

It is a match that Agassi, ranked 89th in the world, is expected to lose. He understands that and as a former champion here, he has been through more humbling circumstances. Last season, for example.

Agassi descended into the world of challenger tournaments last November when his ranking was so low that only the remedial work in tennis’ minor leagues could rehabilitate it.

“To me, it was really a simple, practical, necessary step that had to be made if I wanted to continue playing,” he said. “I had to find guys that were on my level and play against them, and beat them. To be quite honest, it felt good to win matches again. It really didn’t concern me that I was on university courts or flipping over the scorecard myself.”

Agassi began the year at No. 122, the first time he has finished a season out of the top 100 since he turned pro in 1986. Rankings mean more than prestige to the working professional. They confer first-round byes, protective seedings that mean lesser opponents in the early rounds. Agassi faced the prospect of needing wild cards to get into tournaments.

Now that he’s back at a Grand Slam event and seeing peers, Agassi has been hearing about how brave he was, how humiliating it must have been as a former No. 1, etc.

He doesn’t know what everyone is talking about.

“I was down there in the challengers, I was worrying about the guy I was playing against and trying to win matches,” he said. “You’ve got good players all through the rankings. I just had to pay the price and get my game back where it needs to be, and that’s one step at a time. I’m certainly a lot further down that road at the moment than I was a couple of months ago, which speaks highly for the plan and the challenges that the challengers offered me.”

Agassi did not play here last year. He began his season at San Jose, reaching the semifinals. After that he played in four tournaments and failed to win a set.

His slide was arrested for one patriotic weekend, when the U.S. played the Netherlands in a Davis Cup quarterfinal match at Newport Beach. Agassi won both his singles matches, clinching the American victory with a come-from-behind, five-set win.

That was April. He played two clay-court events, and lost in the first round of one and the second round of the next. That was May. Agassi withdrew from the French Open and Wimbledon because of wrist problems.

He didn’t play again until the end of July, where he lost his first match. He did the same the next week at Los Angeles and the next week at Cincinnati.

Agassi was by then dragging down his ranking and reputation. He performed a kind of gut check at the end of the season and made it to the quarterfinals at Indianapolis and the Round of 16 at the U.S. Open, where he lost to eventual champion Patrick Rafter.

This is only Agassi’s second Grand Slam tournament in two years. He accepts his lowly status here, fan interest notwithstanding. He’s certainly armed with more experience than others of his rank.

Agassi has lost only one match at the Australian Open. He won the title in 1995, after ending the 1994 season by winning the U.S. Open as an unseeded player.

Costa will be a good test. The 22-year-old Spaniard lost to Pete Sampras in the quarterfinals here last year.

“I’m certainly up for the match,” Agassi said. “It’s a well-needed match. Somebody who has great wheels, somebody who hits both sides. . . . he hits the ball well. He does a lot of things well and it’s going to require me to play better. I’m looking forward to that. I really believe I need that.

“I’ve got to rise to that level now. That’s what a Grand Slam is all about. I miss feeling this way. I’m looking forward to it.”