MELBOURNE, Australia -- Arnaud Clement couldn't remember
what he did to fight off two match points slightly more than
halfway through his four-hour struggle to advance to his first
Australian Open final.
|  | | Arnaud Clement reacts during his semifinal victory on Friday. |
He does know he wasn't worried about keeping up the grueling
pace, no matter how long the match lasted.
"A small miracle," Clement said of his 5-7, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5,
6-2 victory Friday over No. 16 Sebastien Grosjean to reach Sunday's
final against defending champion Andre Agassi.
But there was no celebration at the end, since the two are
fellow Frenchmen, friends, and doubles and practice partners. They
wrapped arms around each other and walked off. Clement said they
probably would dine together later.
"The more the match progressed, the better I felt," the No. 15
said. "Even though it was four hours, I wasn't too worried about
it."
He added, "You do your utmost to get your head above water, and
finally the whole body comes up. It is a strange feeling to be in a
Grand Slam final and know you were very close to getting a bad
beating."
Relentless scrambling by both made points hard to finish for
much of the match, the longest of the tournament. But Clement had
more energy left at the end, and gained points by picking on
Grosjean's faltering backhand.
He still needed five match points to wrap it up in a final game
with six deuces.
No Frenchman had reached an Australian Open final since Jean
Borotra won in 1928, and none has won a Grand Slam tournament since
Yannick Noah in 1983 in the French Open.
The 1983 French Open also was the only other time two Frenchmen
reached the semifinals at the same Grand Slam event.
Grosjean broke serve in the first game of each of the first
three sets, and appeared set to win with his big serve and
forehand.
He served 20 aces in all, and had 71 winners, compared to
Clement's 40. He also won more points: 176-174.
He gained one match point with Clement serving at 3-5 in the
third. Clement rebounded with two forehand winners, and Grosjean
yielded the game with a backhand wide.
On his own serve at 5-4, Grosjean reached a second match point
with a forehand down the line, but Clement slipped in for a volley
winner. Grosjean lost what turned out to be his last chance with a
pair of forehand errors.
The two still were playing spectacular points late in the fourth
set. Down 15-40 on his own serve at 5-5, Grosjean chased down a lob
and rifled a forehand past Clement at the net. He got back to deuce
in a point on which he hit four apparent winners before Clement
finally couldn't reach one.
But Grosjean missed on the next two points, giving Clement the
break he needed to wrap up the fourth set after 3½ hours of play.
He then broke for 2-1 and 4-1 in the final set and served out
the match.
Grosjean said he felt he really lost when he didn't break
Clement for 5-2 in the third set. Instead, Clement fought back from
0-40 and held for 3-4.
"I started feeling something in my legs and back in the fourth
set," Grosjean said. "At the end, I was tired but he was playing
better and better."
Grosjean, the 5-foot-9 player with his white cap on backward,
never before had gone past the fourth round of a Grand Slam. He
beat No. 4 Magnus Norman and former No. 1 Carlos Moya on his way to
the semifinals.
Clement, an inch shorter, wears a bandanna and sometimes
wraparound sunglasses. He left off the glasses Friday because the
match was played under a closed roof in intermittent rain.
Clement's best previous Grand Slam was last year's U.S. Open,
where he reached the quarterfinals.
He beat Roger Federer, Greg Rusedski and 1999 champion and 2000
finalist Yevgeny Kafelnikov to reach the last four.
He became ill after beating Kafelnikov Wednesday night and was
vomiting at 4 a.m., he said, but "fortunately I slept well last
night."
Clement and Grosjean each had dropped only one set in their five
matches leading to the semifinals.
"I'm fairly confident," Clement said about Sunday's final
against Agassi. Clement has beaten Agassi in the last two of their
four meetings -- once because of injury to his opponent.
"Don't underestimate the power that they have," Agassi said
after beating Patrick Rafter 7-5, 2-6, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-3 Thursday
night to reach the final. "They are serving big."
Compared to Rafter, "they're a lot smaller and a lot faster,
and their weapons are a lot different than the ones you're normally
facing," he said.
Clement said that against Agassi, "I've certainly got to be
more aggressive than I was today. I may have beaten him a couple of
times, but he is certainly playing better now than when I beat
him."
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