By achieving the No. 2 ranking in the world, Andre Agassi is at the high point of his tennis career.
He would like to move up one more notch, but the flamboyant American was too busy enjoying another first - victory in the City of Light - to concern himself with that."I have been to the final of the French Open at Roland Garros twice, but never won," he said after beating Marc Rosset on Sunday in the Paris Open. "Now I know what it is like to win in Paris."
Agassi, the 1992 Wimbledon and 1994 U.S. Open champion whose best previous ATP ranking was third in 1988, has another agenda.
"The best thing is to win Grand Slam tournaments," he said after a 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 victory. "Hopefully, some day you can say, `Yeah, I was No. 1 for a while or for this long.' But to win the Grand Slam tournaments is what is most important to me."
It was Agassi's fifth title of the year and the 24th of his career.
Since the beginning of September, Agassi has won the U.S. Open, Vienna and Paris tournaments and lost only in a third-set tiebreaker to Goran Ivanisevic in the Stockholm quarterfinals.
Agassi beat top-ranked Pete Sampras on Friday.
"I would have to say the best tennis of the week was against Pete," Agassi said. "It was absolutely incredible tennis.
"And to get through that one gave me great confidence. I have to say that to me was the match of the tournament."
Agassi began the year with a cast on his wrist and had dropped to No. 32 before he won at Scottsdale, Ariz., in February, following a five-month layoff.
"I was willing to accept anything that came. When you have been away from the game ... you don't know what to think," he said. "You don't know if the game has moved by you or if you can still do it."
Agassi showed he could still do it.
He moved the 14th-seeded Swiss from side to side in the rallies usually ending with a Rosset error or an easy Agassi winner. Rosset tried to run around his backhand to get a forehand shot. But this often opened up the court for Agassi.
"I feel like I have a strong ability to dictate play out there," he said.
Rosset ended with 49 unforced errors to 20 by Agassi.
A typical forehand long by Rosset gave Agassi his first break at 4-2 on his way to a 31-minute first-set victory.
A Rosset double fault paved the way for a break in the seventh game of the second set, which caused him to threw his racket in anger. Another break in the ninth game put Agassi up by two sets.
Rosset was able to gain a break for 2-1 in the third set, setting up the break point with a running cross-court forehand winner. He held the advantage the rest of the way.
"For two sets I was on the defensive," Rosset said. "Little by little, I started to read his tennis better and I was taking the ball earlier on my bachkhand."
In the fourth set, things went on serve. But Rosset was struggling, holding off break points in two service games.
At 5-6 with Rosset serving, the match turned quickly. A deep forehand into the corner forced a Rosset forehand into the net. At match point, a good service return made Rosset net another forehand to end the match in 2 hours, 36 minutes.
The victory was worth $330,000 to Agassi. Rosset collected $176,000.