PARIS -- To be honest, there were times -- early and often -- when Andre Agassi looked, well, old.

	Few expected Andre Agassi to run into so much trouble playing against Mario Ancic.

At 33, he is the oldest athlete among the 256 competing in singles here at the French Open. Playing opposite a spidery 19-year-old Croation with the smooth face of a ballboy, Agassi seemed even older. When Mario Ancic stunned the No. 2-seed and the tennis intelligencia at Court Suzanne Lenglen and bang-zoomed out to a two-sets-to-love lead, Agassi looked positively ancient.

How was it, then, that at the very end Agassi looked fresh and glistening as dew as he bounded to the net? Why was Ancic, caked in red clay from head to toe, narrow shoulders slumped, weary and utterly defeated as he trudged forward to meet Agassi?

For the fifth time in his career, Agassi came back from a two-set deficit to win a five-set match. The Australian Open champion is still alive for the Grandest of Slams, at least for another day. He defeated Ancic on Wednesday, 5-7, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, 7-5.

"It wasn't ideal, but that's what Grand Slam tennis is all about," Agassi said after the three-hour, 13-minute match. "Sometimes, you just have to find a way. You have to dig deep and come up with the goods against guys that are out there competing with the best of us.

"Something's always going to change psychologically as you get closer to the finish line. The question is how you sort of handle that stage of it when you're on fire, playing the way he was."

Agassi is not the only American man through to the third round.

Vince Spadea, born in Chicago, defeated John Van Lottum of the Netherlands 7-5, 6-1, 2-6, 6-1. James Blake had his match with Ivan Lubicic halted by darkness. He will pick up that match Thursday, which finds him trailing 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (2). Todd Martin plays his second-round match against Britain's Tim Henman.

Heading into the match, few were concerned with Ancic. He was ranked No. 74 among ATP players, based largely on three victories in this year's Australian Open. Rather, the focus was on Agassi's prolific body of work. Agassi had won 762 matches in his professional career, the same number accumulated by one Pete Sampras. With a victory, Agassi would surpass his fellow countryman and move into sixth place on the all-time list behind Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Guillermo Vilas, John McEnroe and Stefan Edberg.

But when Ancic came out swinging for the fences and Agassi seemed oddly out of sorts, it was 5-all in the first set. Very quickly, it became 6-5 and then 7-5 for Ancic. This was the same 6-foot-4, 180-pound kid who famously dispatched Roger Federer in the first round at Wimbledon last year -- so, clearly, this was serious stuff.

And then Ancic, full of belief, ran Agassi off the court in the second set. Looking like a leaner, slightly meaner version of a young Pete Sampras, Ancic had collected the first two sets in the first 71 minutes. Agassi dropped 10 games in a span of 12 and very nearly dropped out of the match.

	“	At that stage, you're not fearing losing -- you've already stared that one straight in the eye. Down two sets and a break twice. All you're thinking about is putting together four good points the next game. ”
		— Andre Agassi

Agassi trailed 0-2 at the top of the third set when he finally found himself. He broke Ancic in the fourth game, then broke again in the 10th game. At that point, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Agassi would roll into the third round. But not without some drama. Ancic, after all, is battle tested. He was hitting balls with countryman Goran Ivanisevic at the age of 10 and was a finalist in the 2000 Wimbledon and Australian Open junior tournaments, at the age of 16, losing to Andy Roddick in the latter.

Agassi squandered two match points, serving at 5-3, to see his lead shrink to 5-4. That was when the boisterous crowd at Lenglen decided to suspend play by doing the wave. It actually held up play for several minutes.

"I felt like they did that wave for 10 minutes," Agassi said. "But it's part of what you play for. You play for those moments , the challenge of responding to those moments."

Ancic managed to level the match at 5-all when Agassi authored a staggering three double faults in that game, suggesting he, too, was growing tired -- or nervous.

"At that stage, you're not fearing losing -- you've already stared that one straight in the eye," Agassi said. "Down two sets and a break twice. All you're thinking about is putting together four good points the next game."

This, he did, winning the 11th game when he sliced a sweet and subtle drop shot; Ancic, by now, leg weary, never got off the baseline.

Serving to get to 6-all, Ancic tried his own drop shot, but Agassi ran it down for the first point. At love-40, Ancic ripped an ace to save one match point. An Agassi netted service return saved another. Finally, Ancic dropped a weak forehand into the net and Agassi escaped again.

It was the third time in five years that Agassi has risen from the ashes here at Roland Garros; in 1999 he reeled in Andrei Medvedev and last year it was Paul-Henri Mathieu.

And what was he feeling when he finally triumphed? Was it joy? Relief?

"In this particular case," Agassi said, smiling, "it's hunger. I haven't eaten since 12.

"You look forward quickly. You look forward quickly. You certainly feel relieved that you sort of have another life now, fighting off the hole that he earned out there. But, ultimately, you quickly start thinking about your next one (Belgium's Xavier Malisse). You go about your business. I put the wins behind me a lot easier than the losses."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.