These kids are going to come get Andre Agassi. He's 32. He's too old. This is a sport for young legs and younger spirits, the ability to chase balls end line to end line, Melbourne to Flushing Meadows, belonging to the teens and twentysomethings of a rising generation. Somehow still, the best of Andre Agassi has come late in his tennis life, past the seven Grand Slams, past his prime, past the wildest expectations of his staying power.

	Andre Agassi's image has changed while his style has improved.

These kids, they still struggle to teach him. It is a sporting marvel. Agassi isn't passing the torch as much as he's swinging it upside the head on them.

He has marauded into the semifinals of the Australian Open, losing a single set on the way to the brink of the finals. He has seamlessly steered out of the U.S. Open Final in September, bringing his game to a new year, a new time. He hasn't won a Grand Slam since the Australian Open in 2001, but he's playing the best tennis in the world today.

Pete Sampras was waiting for him at the end of his U.S. Open final run, rising out of the ruins for his 14th and most improbable Slam. Sampras isn't there now. He's stayed in Los Angeles, saving strength for the summer. Agassi doesn't rest. He doesn't drop out of the rankings. He doesn't let these young legs run him out of the game. This should be the twilight of his tennis life, but he keeps pushing the way Sampras used to push in the old days.

Sometimes, it seems Agassi is staying stronger, longer to make up for the lost years, the lost championships, left in the wake of his reckless youth. He's swinging for his eighth Slam, his fourth at the Australian. He's chasing history, the way these kids are still chasing him as a No. 2 seed. He gets Wayne Ferreira in the semifinals, the South African losing 10 out of 10 tries in his career to Agassi. Across the bracket, the U.S. prodigy, Andy Roddick, could await him in the Australian Open finals.

"I make a guy really pay the price to beat me," Agassi told reporters at Melbourne Park on Tuesday. "I haven't spent any unnecessary energy."

Now, his wife, Steffi Graf, has dangled him a proposition: Win the Australian and inspire her out of retirement for mixed doubles at the French Open.

"You think I'm an inspiration at 32, you should see her at 33," Agassi said. "She always wins. The problem is, I can't keep my eye on the ball."

He keeps his eye on the ball, like he had trouble doing for the longest time. "Image is everything," wasn't just his endorsement pitch, but a mantra that haunted his hollow tennis resolve. All these years later, Agassi has completely transformed his legacy, a second act that allowed the Sampras-Agassi rivalry to stand the test of time, transcending into the thirtysomething set.

Somehow, men's tennis still goes through Agassi. If this was true for Sampras in September, it'll be true for Roddick in January. Everyone waits for Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Tommy Haas to take men's tennis for themselves, to close out the Senior Tour, but they haven't had the game to do it. How can Hewitt miss the Final Four of the Australian Open? How can he be gone so soon? Agassi is still closing on Hewitt's No. 1 world ranking, when the gifted young Aussie should be separating himself.

For a sporting landscape that celebrates the advanced ages of greatness out of Jerry Rice and Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds and Karl Malone, there goes Agassi on that mantle. Thirty-two in men's tennis is pushing 40 years old elsewhere. As much as any of these kids on tour, Agassi is the grown up still grinding it out week to week, tournament to tournament. Back home in Las Vegas, he started the Agassi Academy, an amazing, state of the art school for at-risk kids. He didn't just invest his money, but his heart and soul.

It was forever ago that Agassi had breathed life into the rebellious persona of Rock 'n Roll tennis, thundering out of the Bolletteri Academy, stalking tour courts with frosted hair and polished fingernails. From Zen-toy for Babs, a husband to Brooke, Agassi was a shooting star flickering to the top and back of the world rankings, playing the class clown to Sampras' studious resolve.

Through it all, Agassi found ways to reinvent himself, bridging one generation of tennis star to the next. He's gone two years without a major title. Sampras stopped him in the U.S. Open, but even he's too tired. Even he's sitting the Australian Open out. So, Agassi is still pushing hard, tournament to tournament, and the young lets are getting tired chasing him. This sport is supposed to belong to someone else, but Agassi keeps swinging for his eighth Slam, swinging for history.

He's waiting for these kids to stop him now. They should stop waiting for him to pass the torch. As it turns out, they should plan on taking it. After all these years, wouldn't you know it: The sport still goes through him, through the heart of a champion.

Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPNWoj@aol.com.