Andre Agassi arrives in Washington Monday, fresh off another performance for the United States in the Davis Cup, and ready to play the Legg Mason Classic for the ninth straight year. Yes, the ninth straight year.

And, as usual, tennis watchers will arrive at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center wondering what they've come to wonder about Agassi most of these summers: Which one will show up? Will Agassi play a match, or maybe two, then disappear into the blurry heat that rises from the hard courts on upper 16th Street? Or will he storm into the finals, as he has done in three of those nine years, vomiting in flower pots, courtside, if that's what it takes to win?

He vomited in those flower pots in 1995, the last time he won the title here. That summer, Agassi was, indisputably, on top of the tennis world. Yes, Brooke Shields took a brief, low-key walk through the press tent after her new boyfriend won the title, and Agassi grinned when he saw her, but his talk was all about tennis: about supplanting Pete Sampras at the top of the world rankings, about finally coming into his own, about aiming for the U.S. Open, where he hoped to capture his fourth Grand Slam title.

But Agassi lost to Sampras at the Open that fall, started to slide in 1996, and fell off the radar altogether in 1997. And while Sampras climbed back into the No. 1 spot and kept accumulating Grand Slam crowns — he is just one away from tying Roy Emerson's all-time record of 12 — Agassi wound up begging his way into low-level Challenger events.

Three years later, Agassi, now 28, looks at Sampras sometimes and wonders what could have been. He figures that he would have won a few more Grand Slams himself, challenged Sampras for that No. 1 spot over a much longer period of time, and accomplished who knows what in his career. And that's not just Agassi's arrogance speaking. Sampras himself counts Agassi among his biggest challengers whenever Agassi is in the draw, no matter where his former rival might be ranked at the time.

But Agassi has also heard Sampras talk — as he has frequently this difficult season — about the lack of time in his life for, well, a life. Sampras has a girlfriend who makes him happy and he is building a new home in Florida, but there's no mistaking the fact that, for now, tennis is the No. 1 priority in his life, often to the detriment of other things. It's a life decision that Agassi respects and admires. It's just not one he has the stomach to make himself.

"I can understand making it the priority to go as hard as you can for as long as you can when you're at that peak," Agassi said, referring to Sampras, "but I have to make my choices. I really think I would have won a lot more Grand Slams, but there would have been a lot more cost involved as well. For me, it's a real simple equation."

During the past three years, when he has dipped as low as No. 141 in the rankings and, at one point, missed three consecutive Grand Slam events, Agassi also fell totally in love, got married, built a new house, sat backstage at a Broadway play watching Shields remove her grease paint, and visited her on the set of her successful television show. He threw several black-tie dinners — with headliners such as Celine Dion and Elton John — and has raised nearly $8 million for underprivileged children. He spent days seated at the hospital bed of 14-year-old Kacey Reyes, the daughter of his trainer, Gil, as Kacey fought to recover from a broken neck she suffered in a tobogganing accident. Agassi cried when she smiled up at him from her bed.

"For me, it's more a question of balance in my life," Agassi said, explaining his long absence from tennis's elite the only way he can. "The game has always been very consuming to me when I do it well, and it's not been easy for me to maintain that kind of intensity for long periods of time. I need balance. I get into it, and I'm driven, then to some degree I decide just to tune out, which is not the best thing for everyone, I guess."

Most tennis watchers feel cheated by Agassi's downswings, by his absences from major events here and there and, more disappointingly, his quick departures from others. It's hard not to, when we've all watched the Agassi who won Wimbledon in 1992, or the Agassi who gave Sampras such an incredible run in 1995, right up to their classic U.S. Open final. Agassi brings excitement to a sport that has been in desperate need of excitement and it's not because of his haircut, or his clothing, or even his high-profile wife.

Agassi — lest he has allowed any of us to forget, what with all these long absences — plays a grand, thrilling return game in a sport where, with the men at least, we're often reduced to finding our excitement by watching the speed gun rather than the ball itself. Earlier this month, there was a Wimbledon men's semifinal that lasted 28 games in the fifth set, but had most observers bored to tears rather than gripping the edges of their seats. Know how many times Goran Ivanisevic and Richard Krajicek combined for more than six ball strokes on any single point during that marathon match? Seven. Yep, that's it, seven out of nearly 400. I can still remember a point Sampras and Agassi played in the 1995 U.S. Open final, a point that seemed to last longer than most Ivanisevic-Krajicek games.

That said, it's hard to fault Agassi the man because we so long to see more of Agassi the athlete. He arrives here this summer ranked No. 19 in the world, and on the phone the other day, he sounded as thrilled about his life — perhaps even more thrilled — than he did three summers ago, when he was riding that No. 1 and ruling the tennis world.

"Everyday I'm alive, I feel like I'm a happier person," Agassi said. "It's another opportunity to enjoy life and enjoy whatever my energies are directed toward. I have a wonderful life. I really do." So what Agassi will tennis watchers see out at the FitzGerald center this week? Will it be the hungry Agassi who won titles in 1990, 1991 and 1995? Or will it be the guy who went home after losing to Doug Flach in his first match here last summer, leaving without a backward glance or seemingly the slightest concern?

At the moment, Agassi swears that he is once again focusing his energies on tennis. He lost 22 pounds during the offseason, and played better over the first four months of this year than anyone save Marcelo Rios. The last few months have been a setback — Agassi hurt his shoulder at the French Open, lost in the second round and consequently played Wimbledon without any grass-court warm-ups, losing in the second round as well. But if Agassi had to define this phase in the roller-coaster that is his tennis career, he would call it the time to see if he can have it all. Now that he's happily settled in his off-court life, can he maintain that while making tennis the focus of his attentions? Agassi isn't making any promises, but he's committed to giving it a year or so to see.

"I definitely am not going to go up and down again," he said. "This is as far as I go. I'm definitely intense and driven, as driven as I can be, and I'm going to see what I can do. Hopefully, I can get myself into the position to win some Slams again. And if that's not it? Well, then that's it for me."