PARIS — Back where it all began, Andre Agassi stretches out at his hotel, thinking about the magic of the past year, trying to find the right words to capture the ways it's thrown his life into a new and wonderful realm.
From the ruins of a marriage and with his career in jeopardy, Agassi found love again in Paris with Steffi Graf and started a historic run through four Grand Slam tournaments.
"It's been a crazy, over-the-top, incredible, overwhelming year for me," he says, no hyperbole seeming quite adequate. "I hope I never have another year like this. Anything this dramatic, that changes my life in so many ways, could only be a drastic change in a bad way. I'll take everything just the way it is right now."
Who wouldn't?
He won the French Open for the first time, completing a career Grand Slam, amid a cascade of cheers and tears the day after Graf captured the women's title in a similarly emotional scene.
Ranked as low as No. 141 late in 1997, he reached the Wimbledon final, won the U.S. Open, snatched the top ranking from Pete Sampras' six-year stranglehold, and won again at the Australian Open in January — the first man to reach four straight Grand Slam finals since Rod Laver won them all in 1969.
Agassi's three majors in a span of eight months equaled the total he accumulated in his first 13 years on tour.
And all of it happened against the backdrop of a round-the-world courtship of Graf, who retired after Wimbledon last year.
"I'm no different than anybody who has experienced the same thing," Agassi says of falling in love again after breaking up with actress Brooke Shields. "It's a very important part of one's life."
NCAA MEN: Carlos Drada of Kentucky will meet Alex Kim of Stanford in the finals of the NCAA tennis tournament. The unseeded Drada upset top-seeded Jeff Morrison of Florida, the defending champion, 6-2, 6-4 Saturday while Kim beat teammate K.J. Hippensteel 6-2, 6-7 (1) 6-2.
MADRID OPEN: Spain's Gala Leon Garcia won her first WTA title, beating Fabiola Zuluaga of Colombia 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the Madrid Open Saturday.
RAIFFEISEN GRAND PRIX:Andrei Pavel, an unseeded Romanian, defeated Andrew Ilie 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 Saturday to win the $425,000 Raiffeisen Grand Prix for his second career tournament title.
WORLD TEAM CUP:Dominik Hrabty and Karol Kucera led Slovakia to its first World Team Cup title Saturday, coasting to singles wins against Russia, which fielded two players ranked in the world's top 10. Hrabty beat a struggling, cursing Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-4, 7-6 (1), while Kucera followed with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Marat Safin, one of the tour's hottest player.
STRASBOURG OPEN: Croatia's Silvija Talaja warmed up for next week's French Open by winning the Strasbourg Open on Saturday with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 victory against Rita Kuti Kis of Hungary.