Clement casts off the chains

The French have no equivalent, in a sporting context, for the verb "to choke". Their nearest phrase is avoir la trouille, or to have the shakes, and Sebastien Grosjean trembled from head to foot and back again in the Rod Laver stadium here in Melbourne yesterday, throwing away a 7-5 6-2 4-2 40-0 lead against his fellow Frenchman and friend Arnaud Clement, who tomorrow will play Andre Agassi, the defending champion, in the final.

Clement, who had hurled everything but his shorts into the crowd after his quarter-final win over Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov, gave no semblance of a celebration after winning a quite extraordinary semi-final 5-7 2-6 7-6, 7-5 6-2 in just over four hours. Grosjean was mortified, and Clement had no wish to add salt to a gaping wound.

Twice in the third set Grosjean had a match point. An hour and half later he had lost. It was the sort of defeat that may have untold repercussions on the 22-year-old Frenchman.

It was not until he was staring defeat in the face that Clement really began to play. He narrowly lost a first set which lasted almost an hour, and then a disputed line call saw his game drop away completely. Grosjean could not have believed it would be so easy, and appeared to be benefiting enormously from the roof being closed because of intermittent rain.

But then, with nothing to lose, Clement, also from the south of France and only five months older than Grosjean, his sometimes doubles partner, cast off the chains whereas his compatriot suddenly experienced ever-tightening ropes around all his limbs. Instead of going for the big winners Grosjean began to play conservatively and safely; it was a change of tactics that was to go disastrously awry.

So Clement, like Grosjean playing in his first grand slam semi-final, will now get the chance to see if he is made of the stuff of champions. For the second match running he needed his left thigh strapped, although it did not seem to impede him. But whether the tank is dry after this encounter remains to be seen.

Tomorrow's opponent Agassi always knew he was going to be a champion. "You could call it naivety, cluelessness or arrogance," he said, "but I always kind of believed that I was going to be at the top as far back as I can remember."

It has frequently been a rocky path for the man whom his coach Brad Gilbert refers to, for different reasons, as "Rock". Agassi has had good years, not so good years, and one horrible year in 1997 when he dropped out of the world's top 100 as his marriage to the actress Brooke Shields foundered.

There were many prepared to believe his tennis career was over. But the man from Las Vegas has regularly confounded his critics by reinventing himself, and in nine months between May 1999 and January 2000 he won the French, US and Australian Opens, and was runner-up at Wimbledon.

By winning at Roland Garros, Agassi became only the fifth player in tennis history to win all four grand slam tournaments, joining an elite group which comprises two Australians, Rod Laver and Roy Emerson, Britain's Fred Perry and the United States' Don Budge. If he beats Clement he will have won as many slams, seven, as John McEnroe.

He is taking nothing for granted, particularly after seeing Clement's Houdini act against Grosjean and after coming within two points of losing to the 5ft 8in Frenchman in the second round of the French Open two years ago - that very French Open which totally transformed Agassi's career.