Agassi looks to end Clement's fairy-tale run
Agassi looks to end Clement's fairy-tale run
MELBOURNE, Australia (Reuters): Flamboyant defending champion
Andre Agassi takes on French journeyman Arnaud Clement in a clash
of styles and cultures in Sunday's Australian Open final.
The match will be aired live by RCTI at 10.00 a.m. Jakarta
Time.
It shapes as a battle between one of the giants of the sport
and a talented, if relatively little-known, opponent who has
carved his own slice of history with his unlikely charge through
the season-opening grand slam.
The 30-year-old Agassi has collected six grand slam crowns
during a glittering career in which he has stockpiled 45
tournament titles and more than US$21 million in prizemoney
alone.
Clement, the 23-year-old 15th seed, wears low prescription
glasses and is known more for his speed around the court and
never-say-die attitude than any on-court achievements.
He won his first career ATP title at Lyon last November, after
making his first grand slam quarterfinals at the US Open, and has
earned just over $1.3 million in prizemoney since turning
professional in 1996.
The Frenchman will face a mighty task in his first grand slam
final but has split his four matches with the sixth seeded Agassi
and has won their last two clashes.
He beat the American in the fourth round of last year's U.S.
Open and in the semifinals at Lyon, although Agassi was forced to
retire from that match with a hip injury.
If any further proof was needed that Clement is not fazed by
big names and big occasions, he showed it when he upset last
year's runner-up Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the quarterfinals here.
"It depends how fit Andre really is himself. As far as I'm
concerned, I'm fairly confident against him," Clement said after
staging "a small miracle" to beat friend and doubles partner
Sebastien Grosjean in a four-hour semifinal on Friday.
The victory, in which the plucky righthander came back from
two sets and a break down and also saved two match points in the
third set, made him the first Frenchman to reach an Australian
Open final since Jean Borotra, one of the legendary Musketeers of
French tennis, won the title in 1928.
He is also the first Frenchman to appear in a grand slam final
since Cedric Pioline at Wimbledon in 1997, while the last
Frenchman to win a grand slam singles title was Yannick Noah at
the 1983 French Open.
His marathon match against Grosjean and a sore left thigh
which required strapping in his matches against Kafelnikov and
Grosjean will not help his claims in Sunday's final.
Agassi has arrived in Australia in the sort of dominating form
that carried him to three grand slam titles in four starts,
culminating with his victory here last year.
Agassi has dropped just three sets in his six matches leading
up to the final.
But he benefited when Germany's David Prinosil was forced to
quit their third round match with heat exhaustion and then Rafter
was left struggling with cramps in their eagerly-awaited
semifinal.
Still, the American has grown with confidence as the
tournament has progressed.
"Career-wise, I have goals," Agassi said earlier in the
tournament.
"I'm out here to win. I'm out here to hopefully add some more
titles and ideally handle myself in a certain way in the
process."
"I fall short many times, and that's the part that I think
inspires you to get up the next day, that you can do things a
little better."
Asked about facing one of the Frenchmen after his win over
Rafter, Agassi said: "You don't play guys like that very often.
They're a lot smaller and a lot faster, and their weapons are a
lot different than the ones you're normally facing."
"There's adjustments that have to be made."