Battle of the ages
from eurosport

In his bid to become the first male player to win
four singles titles in Melbourne, second seed Andre
Agassi must brush aside in-form Sebastien Grosjean.
The last time they met at this stage in a Grand Slam
was the French Open... and it was the Frenchman who
won.

Thirty two year old Agassi gets ready to take on a
player eight years younger. But at this point in the
competition age doesn't seem to be a problem with the
American who has only dropped a set so far.

The Las Vegas native's near perfect run has allowed
him to save up energy and enter the second week of
action in top form. His third round match against
Gullermo Coria gave him even more time to recover as
his Argentinean opponent retired in the middle of the
second set.

Despite his sweet victory, Agassi said he would rather
have finished the match than earn some extra rest.
"You want to push yourself and you want to feel the
energy of starting a match and figuring it out and
closing it," said the 32-year-old second seed. "There's
some good in it. I'll certainly be rested and ready to
go. But I prefer to play tennis as opposed to not play
tennis."

On the other hand, Grosjean has had to sweat if off.
The Frenchman has dropped three sets and was pushed to
the limit in his last match against Spain's Felix
Mantilla. The French number one was stretched into a
five setter where he had to make a huge effort in order
to comeback after being two sets down.

With just one day to recover from a three-hour 37-minute
marathon battle, Grosjean has a slight disadvantage.

This will be the pair's fifth encounter and the
head-to-head is even. Their last official meeting was in
last year's Madrid Masters where Agassi won. But both
players clashed in the Kooyong Classic two weeks ago.
The American, who is chasing his eighth grand slam singles
title beat Grosjean 6-2 6-3 in the final.

The statistics show that Agassi won his last two Australian
Open titles after winning that event. If history repeats
itself Agassi is on the right track but Grosjean will be
there to stop him.


Eurosport
AS 20/01/03