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.
PHOTO: EPA
"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.
The point counted, and Egli told Gaudio to serve again from the deuce side. Nalbandian, frustrated that the set was slipping away, briefly argued.
"So now he's going to serve two points to the same side?" Nalbandian said. "Maybe you have to change to another umpire."
Gaudio was amused by his mistake.
"I made history," he said. "It's the first time something like that happened in the French Open."
With the situation resolved, Nalbandian overcame three consecutive set points to reach 6-5, but Gaudio then closed out the set with an overhead slam.
From there, Nalbandian unraveled, struggling to keep the ball in the court. He won only seven points in the final set, and on the last point he dumped a forehand into the net, his 46th unforced error.
Nalbandian said he hurt his ribs in the quarterfinals and was hampered by the injury, especially when serving.
"Sometimes you're not feeling so good and you can't win any matches," he said.
Regarding the confusion about the score in the tiebreaker, Nalbandian faulted Egli.
"He did a very big mistake, like both of us," Nalbandian said. "The umpire has to be concentrating on the game. I think that kind of mistake is so big, they have to have a fine or something."
Forty-seven-year-old Martina Navratilova failed in her bid for a 32nd Grand Slam doubles title Friday at the French Open when she and partner Lisa Raymond lost in the semifinals.
The American pair was defeated by Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Likhovtseva 6-2, 6-4.
The result came a day after Anastasia Myskina and Elena Dementieva won semifinals matches to set up the first all-Russian Grand Slam singles final.
While one Russian woman is assured the singles trophy, the doubles team will have to overcome top-seeded Paola Suarez and Virginia Ruano Pascual.
This will be the ninth consecutive Grand Slam final for Suarez and Ruano Pascual -- the longest streak since Navratilova and Pam Shriver played in 11 in a row from 1983-85.
The Argentine and Spaniard have teamed to win five Grand Slam titles, including the 2001 and 2002 French Open. They won their semifinal Friday against Sandrine Testud and Roberta Vinci 6-0, 6-1.
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