For Andre Agassi, Marat Safin was there for the taking. Just when everybody was anticipating a mouth-watering second-round match between the charismatic American and the reigning French Open champion, Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, up stepped the 6ft 4in 18-yearold Spanish-speaking Russian qualifier to blast Agassi into oblivion.
The poster sellers along the Avenue de la Porte d'Auteuil, leading to Roland Garros, have their fingers on the commercial pulse, and always prominent among their displays is the shaven head of Agassi. Indeed, despite this 5-7, 75, 6-6, 3-6, 6-2 first-round defeat they will probably continue to sell more glossy pictures of him than anyone save Anna Kournikova during the next 12 days, and scramble to find any at all of Safin. But by the start of the next millennium there seems every chance that the face of this young man will become every bit as well known.
It wasn't as if Agassi hadn't seen him coming. Safin, who is based in Valencia with his Spanish coach Rafael Mensua, made his Davis Cup debut against the United States this year, losing to Agassi in straight sets and to Jim Courier, a former French Open champion, in five.
Perhaps that win, on a hard court at Stone Mountain, Atlanta, had lulled Agassi into a false sense of security. More likely this defeat was yet one more example of the former number one's waning powers.
Afterwards Agassi, his arm held stiffly by his side inside his sweater, complained of a sore shoulder. "I just didn't close out the points, which is rare for me."
The truth is that Agassi, for all the relative success of his comeback this year, does not have the venom of old on his ground strokes. In the final of the Lipton Championships this year he was out-hit by Chile's Marcelo Rios, the favourite here, and yesterday it was Safin's turn to pummel him.
Agassi's shoulder problem may well have arisen from his efforts to match Safin's power. He had not played since losing on clay in the Munich final to Sweden's Thomas Enqvist three weeks ago. "I've been hitting a lot of big shots in practice, and maybe my shoulder took more abuse than it's used to," said the American.
Astonishingly this was only Safin's fifth senior match. As a 14year-old he left Moscow for Spain, sponsored by a Swiss bank. He comes from a tennis-playing family - his mother, Islanova, is a coach and played at Roland Garros as a junior - and he has already been signed up by the International Management Group.
Ominously it took Agassi an hour to win the opening set, and any hopes he had that Safin might roll over were immediately dispelled as the young Muscovite reeled off countless cleanly struck winners while generating astonishing pace off these relatively slow courts.
Agassi occasionally flexed his shoulder but not once did he call for the trainer, and when he took the fourth set he seemed unhindered, which he later confirmed.
Superficially the final set hinged on a call that went against Agassi, giving Safin a quick break and the closing momentum. But by now the American's game was shredding fast, whereas Safin grew ever stronger.
Before Agassi's exit all the day's emotion had centred on Monica Seles, the former three-times French Open champion. Her father, Karolj, died 12 days ago after a prolonged struggle against stomach cancer and Seles's decision to play here was obviously a difficult one.
But she very much believes it is what her father would have wished, and her mother Louisa is here to support her. Seles, wearing her father's wedding ring on a chain around her neck, defeated Annabel Ellwood of Australia by an emphatic score of 6-0, 6-2.
World number two Petr Korda crashed out of the first round in the fading light at Roland Garros last night.
The Australian Open champion, and second seed here, fell in five gruelling sets 6-0, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, to Argentine Mariano Zabaleta, who is ranked 211 places below the volatile Czech. Zabaleta failed to win a single ATP Tour match in 1997 but his clay court pedigree was never in doubt.
The baseliner was the 1996 junior world champion, winning 10 titles from 11 events played, including the junior French Open.
That Roland Garros experience proved vital when, after he had looked to have let the match slip away by allowing Korda to come back from two sets down to level at 2-2, he found the extra strength to finish off the match after three hours and 29 minutes.
