Andre Agassi's career in tennis finished with his four sets defeat at the hands of unsung German Benjamin Becker.

From rebel to regal, Andre Agassi experienced it all in an enthralling two-decades long career that at times transcended the sport.

He took tennis by storm when he first blasted on to the scene out of Las Vegas in 1986 -- a motley mix of rock-star hair, facial stubble, cut-off jeans and in-your-face attitude.

Image was everything was the Agassi slogan, but little did anyone know how much that image would metamorphise over the next 20 years.

Groomed for success by his father Mike, who represented Iran at boxing in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics before emigrating to the United States, Agassi enjoyed immediate success winning his first ATP tournament as a wild card in Mexico in 1987.

Along with great rival Pete Sampras, he soon supplanted the ageing Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe as the figureheads of a golden generation of US Tennis stars.

Grand Slam success followed at Wimbledon in 1992, at the US Open two years later and in Australia the following year. He was ranked world No. 1 for 30 weeks from April 1995, the year he shaved his balding head and took Olympic gold at Atlanta in 1996.

But it was too good to last, and in 1997 Agassi suffered a depressing mid-career slump that saw him plummet to No. 141 in the world rankings and embark on a high-profile two-year marriage to actress Brooke Shields.

The chastened Agassi that slowly and painfully emerged from the period was unlike the gung-ho Agassi that had preceded it.

The brash, devil-may-care swagger was gone and in its place emerged a dedicated professional tennis player, who became a spokesman for the sport and a role model for millions.

It is no coincidence that asked recently to look back on his career and pick the greatest moment, Agassi had no hesitation in selecting his thrilling win in the 1999 French Open final when he came back from two sets to love down against Andrei Medvedev to complete his collection of Grand Slam titles.

That was something that proved beyond such greats as Bjorn Borg, McEnroe, Ivan Lendl and Sampras and Agassi is proud of that achievement.

"Winning in Paris was the moment that is the biggest in my career because of what it entailed," he said.

"It entailed falling to 140 in the world, it entailed a lot of hard work to climb the mountain.

"The to do it there, where it was my toughest surface, down two sets to love in the final, for it to be the last of the four slams, all that probably highlghted the fact that that was my greatest memory on the court.

"From that point on, the rest was a bonus."

And what a bonus it turned out to be as Agassi embraced his 30s just as effectively as he had done his teen years.

He won three Australian Opens out of four from 2000, played what are still considered to be all-time tennis classics against Pat Rafter in the Wimbledon 2000 semi-finals and against old foe and friend Sampras in the 2001 and 2002 US Opens.

That last final proved to Sampras' swansong, leaving him with a 20-14 edge in their 34 career meetings.

Two other members of the so-called US Fab Four -- Jim Courier and Michael Chang -- also hung up their racquets around that time, but Agassi, older then any of them, soldiered on.

By that time his 2001 marriage to women's tennis legend Steffi Graf had resulted in the birth of two children and senior citizen Agassi comfortably took on the role of family man.

But the years of pounding it out on the courts had taken their toll and Agassi has found it harder and harder to get himself tournament fit, needing regular cortisone injections to fight off chronic back pain.

Incredibly last year he made it through to the US Open final again -- at 35 the oldest man to reach a Grand Slam final since Ken Rosewall in 1974 -- and even had world No.1 Roger Federer looking worried before eventually losing in four sets.

But this year his appearances have been few and far between and in late June he announced that it was all over after the US Open.

Asked to reflect on the extraordinary 20-year journey that he had just completed and to look back on the teenage tyro that he used to be Agassi replied: "I understand you a heck of a lot more than I want to be you."