Andre Agassi

The city that usually takes was in a very giving mood at the eighth annual Andre Agassi Grand Slam for Children, which raised a record $12.3 million, easily doubling last year's total.

For many years, Andre Agassi stole the show at the U.S. Open. Now, three years out of the tennis game, he's doing it in coat and tie. Monday was opening day. They played 56 matches. Defending champions Roger Federer and Serena Williams won handily. There was drama on the back courts, great play on the grandstand, exceptional effort everywhere. And then, Monday night, the bald guy from Las Vegas walked to the microphone and one-upped everything. He was there as part of a ceremony honoring "athletes who have given back."

He walked onto the court to a standing ovation, hardly the first time Andre Agassi has been warmly welcomed by a throng of tennis fans but one of the most enjoyable greetings he has ever received. Nearly three years after he retired from competitive tennis, the eight-time Grand Slam winner dusted off his rackets to play World Team Tennis.

Tennis: An article in Sunday's Sports section on the men's draw at the U.S. Open said Andre Agassi won the French Open in 1998. He won it in 1999.

Tennis: A Sports article Aug. 30 on the men's draw at the U.S. Open said Andre Agassi won the French Open in 1998. He won it in 1999.

Andre, Andre, Andre. Put a lid on it, will you? Andre Agassi's disqualification from a tournament at Indianapolis last week for the twin sins of ball and verbal abuse brought to an abrupt end his recent run of fine play. He's quite correct that the behavior he exhibited in his first-round match was of a kind he has shown "a thousand times," though he had never been defaulted from a tournament.

With Andre Agassi, you get the sacred and the profane. There's the occasional profane outburst, as he demonstrated by drawing a point penalty in a quarterfinal match a few days ago. And then there is the sanctity of a medal. He will win the gold or the silver Saturday when he faces former French Open champion Sergi Bruguera in the Olympic final after a not-so-easy 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 semifinal victory Thursday over India's Leander Paes, the world's 127th-ranked player.

When Andre Agassi met Leander Paes in the tennis semifinals, both men continued a family tradition of Olympic play. Agassi might have defeated the Indian on the court, but when it comes to Olympic heritage, it's Paes 2, Agassi 1. Paes' father, playing on India's field hockey team, won a bronze medal at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. His mother was captain of India's basketball team at the same Games. Paes goes so far as to say he was conceived in Munich.

Sergi Bruguera of Spain, twice French Open champion and once the third-ranked player in the world, was a mere target Saturday in the gold-medal match of the Olympic tennis tournament. It might as well have been archery, Bruguera the bull's-eye and Andre Agassi firing arrows. When it was all over, after Agassi had emptied his quiver in a 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 rout, Bruguera left the court, head bowed, grinning sheepishly, much like a man who had turned a corner and walked into a wall.