Guillermo Coria swept 13 games in a row, then withstood Tim Henman's comeback bid to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-0, 7-5 Friday at the French Open, setting up the first all-Argentine Grand Slam final.
The No. 3-seeded Coria's opponent today will be unseeded Gaston Gaudio, who lost track of the score in the second set but knew when to celebrate after beating yet another Argentine, No. 8 David Nalbandian, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-0.
The last Argentine to reach the men's final at the French Open was 1982 runner-up Guillermo Vilas, who watched from the third row as Coria and Gaudio advanced to their first Grand Slam final.
"I never thought I was going to be in the final of such a big tournament like this," Gaudio said.
He or Coria will become the first Argentine to win a major men's title since Vilas at the 1979 Australian Open.
"There will be a lot of emotion on Sunday," Vilas said. "It's normal, no?"
Coria, who is named after Vilas, took a 3-0 lead in the final set of the seesaw semifinal before Henman rallied to win five consecutive games. Coria then regrouped to sweep the final four games, closing out the victory when Henman floated a backhand long.
"I've dreamed of getting to this very Sunday," Coria said. "It will be a historic moment. Most important is that Argentina is going to win."
The women's title will be decided Saturday in the first all-Russian Grand Slam final. No. 6-seeded Anastasia Myskina or No. 9 Elena Dementieva will become the first female from Russia to claim a major title.
The No. 9-seeded Henman, the first Englishman in 41 years to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros, made his run with a serve-and-volley game that's usually ineffective on clay. The tactic finally backfired against Coria.
"I started off the match well, but a difficult period in the middle, and still had chances in the end," Henman said. "That's the way it goes. That's sport."
The speedy, combative Argentine was on the defensive early, and he received a code violation for angrily breaking his racket after falling behind 5-3. The opening set was the first he has lost in the tournament.
Henman continued to apply pressure until he led 4-2 in the second set, when the match suddenly turned.
Coria began to hit his passing shots more precisely, Henman became more erratic, and soon the Englishman was having a hard time winning a point, much less a game.
Coria kept making his opponent hit one more shot. On one exchange, he raced into the corner, then up to the net, then retreated to hit an acrobatic overhead for a winner.
"Vamos!" he shouted.
Henman made one last charge, overtook Coria in the fourth set and served with a chance to force a fifth. But Coria broke, then broke again for the ninth time to secure the victory.
The Argentine has won 37 of his past 38 clay-court matches.
"For a set and a half, and toward the end of the forth set," Henman said, "playing the best clay-court player in the world, I made him look pretty ordinary.
"But it's a question of being able to do that for a long, long time. On a clay court, that's the toughest challenge. The bottom line is I wasn't good enough to do it."
Gaudio rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the second set, winning five consecutive games and overcoming two set points.
Confusion about the score came with Gaudio serving at 5-2 in the tiebreaker. He erroneously served from the deuce side of the court, and neither Nalbandian nor chair umpire Andreas Egli noticed the mistake until after the point, which Gaudio won for a 6-2 lead.
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