Patriotism and tennis: a bad mix

American men's tennis is in a weird place right now. Of the three older living legends right now, one is on top of his game, one is on hiatus with his future in question and the youngest of the three is about to retire.\nThey all continue to behave weirdly, if not badly. There's no wonder you don't see people hanging out around campus talking tennis.\nThe U.S. tennis motto used to be, "The more things change, the more things stay the same." Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Michael Chang marked something of a golden age of the sport or at least a seamless transition of the tantrum-prone John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors to players just as good if not better.\nEvery time I really want to like Agassi, he goes and does something stupid or perplexing. Right now, at 32, he continues to be the hottest player in the world, having won all 12 of his matches this year, including a 6-3, 6-1 win over Italian Davide Sanguinetti in the Siebel Open final in San Jose, Calif., Sunday.\nWhat's odd about Agassi is that while he seems to place great importance on beating some run-of-the-mill Italian at some run-of-the-mill tournament in San Jose, he decided not to play in the Davis Cup tournament last weekend in Croatia, where the U.S. once again was humiliated and sent back to Group Play, the minor leagues of international tennis.\nIt's not that Agassi has never shown patriotic pride or doesn't know its meaning. When he won the 1996 Olympic gold medal in Atlanta, he called it "the greatest accomplishment I've ever had in this sport." His father Mike was an Olympic boxer for Iran in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics and explained the importance of participating for one's country to him.\nFlash forward to this year. Agassi wins the Australian Open, the first major of the year, and announces as part of a wager with his wife Steffi Graf -- you may remember her from her 22 Grand Slam singles titles and her 1997 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue photos -- that the two will play mixed doubles at the French Open in May. (Graf had bet against her husband winning.)\nForget for a second that Agassi and Graf, two extremely inexperienced doubles players, wouldn't stand a chance even if their opponents each put a leg in a potato sack and play three-legged. Why is Agassi devoting his energy to such a lame pursuit while sitting out the Davis Cup? It's not like we can just beat anybody without him. Hell, we barely beat Zimbabwe a couple of years ago without him.\nYes, this would be the same Agassi, who once proclaimed himself the leader of the "Rock and Roll Tennis" movement and then had a "special friendship" with Barbara Streisand at the same time.\nThat leads us to Michael Chang, who once drew Agassi's ire because he didn't play enough Davis Cup. Chang announced his retirement effective at the end of this year's U.S. Open. At 5-foot-9-inches and 160 pounds, he almost never had a size advantage over his opponent, but he more than got by on his speed, hustle, guile and smarts -- he won the 1989 French Open at age 17, and when he needed to up his game a notch, he got a racket with a bigger head and developed a 130 mph serve that got him to No. 2 in the rankings in 1996.\nChang's behavior, though, was too unusual for him to achieve mass acceptance. He is so religious that he missed the 1993 Australian Open because of Bible study classes. No, I am not saying that studying the Bible is unusual, but missing a Grand Slam event, an event that often defines a player, is. Fans would wait forever for his autograph as he wouldn't merely sign his name but put, "Jesus loves you, Michael Chang." \nWhile Chang has announced his retirement, no one knows about Sampras' future. I really, really like Sampras because as much as we Greeks dominate the sports world and then marry beautiful blondes like Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, it never gets old. He hasn't played since his U.S. Open win last September over Agassi, the tennis equivalent to Jack Nicklaus' win at the 1986 Masters. He backed out of the Siebel Open at the last minute only saying he wasn't prepared. To be fair, he recently became a father for the first time, perhaps stealing away some of his attention.\nWith his record 14 Grand Slam titles and 276 weeks at No. 1, Sampras makes a good claim at being the best ever. However, he is duller than skim milk and the tax code combined. "I never wanted to be the great guy or the colorful guy or the interesting guy," Sampras once said. "I wanted to be the guy who won titles."\nSampras has taught us one thing though: that even boring people can snag beautiful blondes. By the way, does anybody want to hear about the tax code?