Agassi falls to the local hero

Post-lunch Roland Garros is always a narrative of shrieks, whistles, grunts, mobile phones, crowd tremour and partisan explosions.

On one of those days when zephyrs pick up the red clay and deposit it against the hoardings and in the eyes, French man Sebastien Grosjean rose above his reputation as a credible clay court player and, in the building clamour, skinned Andre Agassi for one hour and 49 minutes to breathlessly earn a place in the French Open semi-final.

The American has rarely been treated to such an exposure of court speed and accuracy of ground strokes, especially off the troubling Grosjean forehand.

Clearly he was taken aback too as in his understandably gruff and stroppy post-match conference Agassi declared that Grosjean was simply able to lift his game to a level he himself could not match.

Inevitably too, the arrival of former US president Bill Clinton will be lumped in with all of the other implausible theories. What person in the world could arrive at a Grand Slam and make Agassi appear as two-bit and peripheral?

Yes, Clinton paraded into the VIP section with his slug-stoppers, advisers and grinning hosts just after Agassi had peerlessly taken the first set 6-1, breaking twice and taking only 20 minutes.

At that stage the crowd took particular delight in trying to draw the former US president into a Mexican wave. He didn't Mexican wave. They booed and Agassi lost 12 out of the next 14 games. Blame it on Bill.

The third seed, however, quickly detonated that engaging but flimsy theory. It was as he said, more to do with the transcendent Grosjean, who now becomes the first French player into the semi-final since Henry Leconte in 1988, than the arrival of any Oxford graduate.

"I didn't know he (Clinton) was there. I didn't notice that at all. I played real good, just not good enough," said Agassi before going on to tersely explain that the only thing giving him particular trouble was Sebastien Grosjean.

The bleak two-set phase from the Australian Open champion saw his serve perish twice in the second set for 1-6 and three times in the third for 1-6.

At that stage Agassi appeared hurried, disinterested, wasteful, profane. At 5-1 down in the third he even deliberately stopped to let a ball bounce long. Instead it landed in to give the Philippe Chatrier crowd another reason to howl. They sensed weakness.

"Get your head into it," thundered an American accent, echoing what just about every neutral was thinking. And Agassi did. Breaking Grosjean in the first game of the fourth set, he began smartly.

For the conspiracy theorists Clinton clamorously arrived back as Agassi was serving for 31 but instead handed back his slim advantage to Grosjean with his second double-fault of the game on break-point.

It then went with serve until 4-3 when the 23-year-old again broke as the American drove into the net, his serve under considerable pressure on the third break-point.

Grosjean finished calmly, saving two break-points before taking the advantage as Agassi again found the net with the last stroke of the match.

"His speed puts a lot of pressure on you because you have to hit not just quality shots but you have to hit a big number of them," said Agassi. "I couldn't come up with that," he said.

Grosjean now meets Spain's Alex Corretja in the next round. The runner up here in 1998, Corretja advanced in three sets against Switzerland's Roger Federer 7-5, 6-4, 7-5.

"I think Corretja has the type of game to give other players trouble otherwise he wouldn't be in the semis," observed Federer.

"He's also a top-10 player on clay. Maybe he didn't completely find his rhythm because he started late this season. But I think he has a chance."

The other semi-final involves last year's winner and current world number one Gustavo Kuerton and fourth seed Juan Carlos Ferrero setting up the possibility of an all Spanish final.

Men's Singles Quarter-Finals

(13) A Corretja (Spa) bt R Federer (Swi) 7-5 6-4 75, (10) S Grosjean (Fra) bt (3) A Agassi (US) 1-6 6-1 6-1 6-3.