January 29, 1995: What could have been

MELBOURNE, Australia - This should have been just the next chapter of their rivalry, another highlight in their decade-long head-to-head opus. As Andre Agassi finished off the 1995 Australian Open with an ace on match point, beating Pete Sampras in the final, their rivalry looked like it was as even as ever. Instead, Agassi's third major championship ended up being the high point for many years, the spot when the wave started to roll back.

You never would have expected the careers of Agassi and Sampras to take such diverging paths after the final in Melbourne on January 29, 1995. Agassi won the final in four sets, completely controlling the match from his normal position on the baseline, moving Sampras around the court like he was on the a string. After the match, Sampras, then the world's top-ranked player, admitted that he simply lost to a better player that day, that he didn't have a chance when Agassi was at his best.

After Agassi's Australian Open victory, the personal score between the two men was 7-6 in favor of Sampras. Sampras also had more major victories, five to Agassi's three, but both men were now missing only the French Open from their goal of a career Grand Slam. Both men were young - still in their 20s, even - and both were at the top of their game. With their contrasting styles - Sampras the epitome of powerful serve-and-volley tennis, Agassi the best return man in the world and the man who stayed on the baseline to wear down his opponents - this looked like the rivalry that would define tennis for a generation.

And then it fell apart.

After his win in Australia, Agassi beat Sampras two more times before they met in the U.S. Open final later that year. Sampras won, evening up their head-to-head record at 8-8. And from there, Agassi disappeared. Vanished from the top level of tennis, for reasons that seemed mysterious at the time. After the fact, Agassi admitted that the loss to Sampras in the U.S. Open destroyed his confidence. He started taking crystal meth, and he disappeared from competitive tennis.

Agassi started working his way back, but in that time, Sampras turned their personal rivalry one-sided. For the rest of the 90s, Sampras held a 9-3 edge in head-to-head matchups. A rivalry that had started out so even, in which the question of who was better would cause a legitimate debate, had turned lopsided. There was no question who was better now.

After Agassi found his way back from the wilderness, he beat Sampras three times in a row to even up the score a little bit. He salvaged the rivalry with a late-career resurgance, and we are able to look back now and admire how those two, for the most part, brought out the best in each other. Arguements about who was better still always point to Sampras and his 14 career Grand Slam titles, but detractors can always mention the fact that Agassi won the French Open that Sampras never could, that Agassi won the Olympic gold medal that Sampras never could.

It's still considered one of the greatest individual rivalries in tennis history, but it could have been so much more.

June 6, 1999: Clay-covered gold

PARIS - Andre Agassi always seemed to be in Pete Sampras' shadow. They both entered the ranks of professional tennis at about the same time, and both started winning events as teenagers. Though they developed a rivalry during their career that was considered the best in the men's game, Sampras was considered the superior player by everybody.

However, on June 6, 1999, on the clay courts of Roland Garros, Agassi finally had his moment in the sun. After coming from two sets down to beat unseeded Andrei Medvedev in the final of the French Open, Agassi had accomplished something that only five other men had done and, perhaps more important, something Sampras hadn't. He had won the career Grand Slam.

The Grand Slam in tennis is an especially unique accomplishment because of the different styles of tennis needed to win. While hard court tournaments are considered the most fair, grass court tournaments like Wimbledon favor powerful servers, while clay court tournaments like the French Open favor precision players. The powerful serve and volley style of Sampras worked wonders on hard courts and grass courts, but it wasn't made for the slower clay courts, which is why he always struggled there. For Agassi to win on all three types shows his versitality.

But, the win at the French did more than give Agassi the career Grand Slam - if you add to it his gold medal from the Olympics, he became the only man in history to have won a career Golden Slam. Only one woman has matched that feat - Steffi Graf, who Agassi later married.

Sampras and Agassi will always be linked in tennis history because of their (mostly) friendly rivarly. The record shows that Sampras won more head-to-head matches (20-14) and won more Grand Slam titles (14-8). But he never won the French Open, and because of that, never won the career Grand Slam, giving Agassi one thing his rival never got.

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HONORABLE MENTION
June 6, 1920: ST. LOUIS - With a 5-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs, the Cardinals closed down Robison Field, the stadium that had been their home since 1893. After embarking on a 21-game road trip, the Cardinals returned home to rent out Sportsmans Park from American League Browns, remaining there until 1966, long after the Browns had left town. So why is a team switching stadiums a big deal? Because the Cardinals used the money they made from selling Robison Field to establish a minor league system, designed to train young players and funnel them to the Major League team. The Cardinals' system was the first of its kind; before, minor league teams were all independent, and Major League teams had to negotiate to buy players. The Cardinals set it up so they could have more good, young players under their control. It had immediate results, with the Cardinals winning nine NL pennants in the next 26 years. The Cardinals' minor-league system was eventually copied around baseball, leading to the elaborate minor leagues that exist today.