Agassi, Sampras make last stand against young guns

With Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi under siege from the game's young guns, this year's Australian Open has the look of a last stand about it.

Both decorated Americans, for so long the dominant stars of the men's game, figure among the players to beat on the hot-plate hardcourts of Melbourne Park, where the action gets under way on Monday.

But there is a growing belief that age is catching up with them and that a changing of the guard is under way in the men's game.

Agassi, at 30 the oldest of the current top-ten ranked players, is the fifth player in history to win all four Grand Slam tournaments along with Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Fred Perry and Don Budge.

Sampras, 29, last year also created history. He supplanted Emerson to become the game's all-time leader with 13 grand slam singles titles with his seventh Wimbledon crown last July.

Friday's draw has Agassi and Sampras scheduled to collide in a quarter-final. They are both in the bottom half of the draw, headed by second seed Marat Safin, the giant Russian who blasted Sampras off court in the final of last year's US Open.

Agassi and Sampras can stand tall in any era, but they face a torrid time holding their position against the faster young stars.

Charismatic Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten is at forefront. He finished last year as the world's number one thanks to a memorable victory over Agassi in the Masters Cup final in Lisbon in November.

For the women too it's a new season and the big four in women's tennis are itching to resume battle for the right to be world number one.

On the eve of the Australian Open, the hot question is whether the Williams sisters can finally break the stranglehold Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport have had on the world tennis rankings for the past three years.

The last time someone other than Hingis or Davenport held one of the top two spots was in 1998 when Jana Novotna won Wimbledon.

While the Williamses, in their own words, have taken the game to new heights, creating a blaze of colour and hype, they haven't been able to crack the top two.

Serena is currently sixth and Venus third with old campaigners, Conchita Martinez and Monica Seles, in between.

Hingis for one believes the likes of herself, Davenport and Seles still hold the edge as 2001 circus rolls into town.

"I think all of us have a little edge, me and Monica and also Lindsay over the Williamses right now because we played a lot more matches (at the end of last season and beginning of this season)," she said.

And she's hungry after failing to win a major last year for the first time since 1997.

"It would mean a lot because although I won nine tournaments last year, I didn't win a major. It definitely means a lot to me," she said.

Hingis comes to Melbourne with her confidence boosted after beating Serena in the Sydney warm-up tournament. But she must repeat the feat if she is to make the Open final as the Williams sisters are in her side of the draw.