Agassi rolls into final

John Pye

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003 | 10:03 a.m.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Andre Agassi remained on course for his fourth Australian Open title today, beating South Africa's Wayne Ferreira 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 in the first men's semifinal.

"I feel like I was hitting the ball cleanly, moving well, making good decisions out there with my shot selection," the Las Vegan said. "Everything was firing."

The 32-year-old Agassi, 38-3 at Melbourne Park and a winner of seven Grand Slam titles, will face the winner of the semifinal Friday between fellow American Andy Roddick and Germany's Rainer Schuettler.

Roddick outlasted Morocco's Younes El Aynaoui 21-19 in the longest fifth set in Grand Slam history Wednesday night. The set lasted 2 hours, 23 minutes and the match took 4:59.

But an even bigger drama developed on the women's side of the bracket today, where Serena Williams thought she'd thrown away a chance for her fourth straight Grand Slam title when Belgium's Kim Clijsters raced to a 5-1 lead in the final set.

"I really didn't think I'd win it at that stage," Williams said. "I just kept fighting, one point at a time. Next thing I knew, the match was over."

The top-ranked Williams saved two match points and won the final six games for a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory in the semifinals.

For the fourth consecutive Grand Slam event, Williams will face sister Venus in the final.

"We love to play each other," Serena said. "Getting this far is just amazing for both of us and I think I was a bit fortunate to get through because Kim played a wonderful match."

Venus advanced with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne.

"Venus is actually playing a little better than me at this tournament," Serena said. "I've just got to pull something out of my back pocket to be able to go onto the next level."

Serena won despite 65 unforced errors.

"I'm a fighter. I didn't come all these miles to lose," she said. "I really, really, really want to win this more than anything, but I'm sure Venus does as well, so it's going to be hard."

When the match ended, Serena dropped her racket as Clijsters' backhand missed, and shuffled over to Venus and mother Oracene mouthing, "I can't believe it. I can't believe it."

Serena, attempting to become the first woman to hold all four major titles at once since Steffi Graf nine years ago, hobbled at times against Clijsters, and took a nine-minute treatment break in the third set for blisters on her right foot.

After holding serve to make it 2-5, Serena survived two match points in the eighth game of the set and ended up breaking Clijsters to make it 3-5.

"She just started playing so much more aggressively and hardly made any unforced errors any more," Clijsters said. "She took such a big risk to really go for her shots."

Serena held serve in the next game, and Clijsters committed five consecutive faults to go down 0-30 as Serena broke again to even the match.

"That's probably is the only thing I regret a little bit, those two double faults," Clijsters said.

Serena took the final two games for her 27th consecutive victory in Grand Slam play.

Both Williams sisters are in the Australian Open final for the first time. Last year, Serena missed the tournament after injuring her ankle in a warmup event, and Venus lost in the quarterfinals.

"It's so exciting," Venus said. "You know, I've struggled and failed, done everything but get this close to winning the Australian Open. ... Four in a row is real nice. At least, I'm in a position to be a winner."

The sisters also combined to reach the women's doubles final, beating Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond 6-2, 6-2.

No woman has held all four majors at once since Graf added the 1994 Australian Open titles to her victories in the final three majors in 1993.