LONDON -- Agassi-Hole?

Well, yeah, it was Shine Dome himself who waddled smack into another one. Or was it a ditch, a pit, a funk, a choke? Call it what you will. America's Favorite Sincerity Boy turned another winning position in a Grand Slam into a rather nasty scam, and not even the leader of the free world could save him this time. Or ex-leader.

Andredians, not to be confused with Androids although their haircuts are usually similar, will recall how their near-balding beloved, in the French Open quarterfinals, was on the brink of blowing out Sebastien Grosjean when William Jefferson Clinton stole the spotlight and cameo-ed just in time to watch Agassi fade out -- losing three sets in approximately 33 seconds. "I never saw him," said an obviously enraged Agassi.

On Friday in the men's semifinals at Wimbledon there was both a Kennedy and a Jackson in the royal box -- whom Andre undoubtedly also did not see -- but they were neither royals nor dead presidents.

It was Agassi, in fact, who turned up dead -- a 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 8-6 loser to Pat Rafter (the popular king of Queensland, whom Agassi was playing for the third year in a row at this stage of the Championships) in a match of splendor and struggle that was, as usual, besmirched by the defeated Las Vegan who is as sore and poor a loser as ... whom? Tyson? Nixon? The Mets? Benjamin Bratt?

Reporter: People raved about the level of tennis when you played Patrick here last year. What did you think about it today?

Agassi: I thought it sucked.

That's specifically because the Australian Open champion had the Australian beaten oh, maybe five or six or lebenty-leben times before blowing his cool, his top and then the whole kit and kaboodle. "Not too many matches that you play, something like that happens, it turns around for you," said Rafter.

It turned around once when Agassi was in control, up two sets to one and on serve in the fourth. But when Rafter's sliced crosscourt backhand was called good -- replays showed it was the correct call -- it was the second point in a row Agassi felt he'd been gypped out of. So Double A protested and then was broken for 4-2. At the next changeover he came railing at the chair umpire. "Bull---- call, bull--- call," he said. "You've got plenty of [lines] people. Get rid of him [the offending linesman]. Get another one. They're all over the place. You want me to find one for you?"

Naturally, the ump didn't. And so, serving in the next game, naturally, Agassi tank-blasted a serve so hard (122 mph, probably his fastest of the contest) and off-target, it touched down on the baseline (!) before careening into the backstop, forcing the same linesman to quickly get out of the way. Agassi saluted him by holding up his next service ball.

Reporter: Did that ball just get away from you? or were you aiming at somebody?

Agassi: Yeah, I was trying to hit the line, and it just got a little bit away from me.

Yeah, and Barbra Streisand wants another chance.

It was hardly stunning that when Pinocchio arrived at the fifth set -- precisely where Agassi lost to Rafter last July here -- he wasn't exactly in a joyful frame of mind. All the same, Agassi grasped firm control of the match again by breaking Rafter in the first game, holding and swiftly moving to 15-40 on his opponent's serve in the third game. "If I lost that game, the match was over, simple as that," said the Aussie.

But Agassi had a sitter forehand pass that Rafter guessed right on and immediately volleyed a winner. Agassi had three more break points for 3-0 and lost them. He had another point for 4-1, a double break lead again, and lost it. The thing is, he wasn't gagging. The thing is, the other guy -- one of the toughest competitors as well as nicest human beings in sport, despite that awful decision to get his wondrous flowing locks hacked into a George Michael sponge-cut that reveals a birthmark white-hair spot -- just kept digging and hustling and charging and putting Agassi under severe pressure that the American could not possibly withstand.

Still, Agassi served for the match at 5-4 and was two points from victory. But again, the resilient Rafter repelled him, whirling an approach to the baseline chalk and then volleying crosscourt to once again break serve and deadlock an encounter that would finish one minute shy of three hours. At 6-all and now ascendant in most of the long rallies, Rafter reached 40-0, but a stream of Agassi returns brought him still another break point. But the 29-year-old Aussie -- who has a chronic sore shoulder and has said he may retire at the end of the year -- did not want this to be his final match at The Big W.

He courageously drop-volleyed to save.

Having spinached his huge chances for the last hour, Agassi did it again. So, naturally, he loudly swore at somebody. Whoever it was -- Rafter, himself, the linesman, the inventor of Rogaine, surely not his current alleged squeeze, Steffi Graf -- a lineswoman named Wendy Smith heard him, marched herself to the chair and reported the oath to the umpire who gave Andre a "code violation for obscenity."

Rafter promptly held for 7-6 and just as promptly benefited from three Agassi backhand errors for 0-40, triple match point. He won the match on the third one. Obviously upset as he stalked to the net to shake hands, Agassi this time rifled a ball all the way to the opposite backstop which coincidentally came close to searing Ms. Smith's alert ears. Moreover, it was also obvious Agassi was not humming the old Beach Boys' lyric: "Wennn-dy, Wendy Left Me Alone."

"Listen, I'm sure [Andre] was very upset. He had his chances," said Rafter, letting the loser off the hook. "I thought it was a little bit unfair of that lady to report him. I guess she took the rules a little bit seriously ... I think [she] really got to him in the end ... He pretty well snapped ... He was a bit hacked off."

Reporter: Did you feel it was a little unfair?

Agassi: Yeah, big time. Big time. I blame her husband for that.

Reporter: Did you aim at her at the end with the ball?

Agassi: No, no. I meant to hit that in the net.

Yeah, and Brooke Shields can act her way out of a paper bag.

Of course, Agassi would be fined $2,000 for the "audible obscenity" -- but Wimbledon referee Alan Mills claimed he wasn't concerned about Ms. Smith. "He didn't hit her," Mills said. "She was athletic."

A while later, continuing to regenerate himself back into his younger days when he was a tacky imitation of tennis' rude punk twins -- a kind of Jimmy-John McEnConnors -- Agassi embarrassed himself some more. "It wasn't like I was losing my mind out there," he told the BBC. "[The lineswoman] to go running up there ... It was classless."

Classless? This, from a guy who has made a career out of being not just AA -- but AI? Abhorrent and Insulting? In 1996, Agassi's sewer mouth should have gotten him kicked out of the Olympics in Atlanta -- which he ended up winning. In '96 he was thrown out of the tournament in Indianapolis for profane language and in '99 he got the boot from the tournament in San Jose for the same thing.

Classless?

The real problem is that for all of Agassi's seven Grand Slams -- at 31, he's one of only five men to win all four majors -- the occasional talent and the occasional charm, the guy is constantly worming up the works with another inglorious trash show.

An interested spectator at Wimbledon on Friday -- not non-Presidents Kennedy and Jackson -- once made a movie which defined behavior humorously close to this. His name is Jack Nicholson. The movie is One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Curry Kirkpatrick is covering Wimbledon for ESPN The Magazine, E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.