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Agassi feels he can just do it!

Two Americans took centrestage on a beautiful Sunday at the French Open. One, a young star on the rise, the other, a veteran who many think is past his prime. Both came up with surprises.

Venus williams had been expected to go far in Paris this year, and perhaps no one expected it more than she did. But facing a qualifier about whom she knew nothing, she lost control, blowing three match points.

Andre Agassi, seeded only 13th these days, took on the defending champion, clay-court master Carlos Moya. Trailing a set down and 1-4 in the second, most wrote Agassi off. But at just the right moment, he found his offensive game, the aggressive one, the one that works best for him. He took control and sent Moya to an early exit.

Yesterday was a good day for experience and seasoning. It began with Steffi Graf holding back young Anna Kournikova, and climaxed with Agassi's intelligent victory.

For Williams, just as for her younger sister Serena a few days earlier, it was a day for humility. In the previous round, she had exulted: "I'm ready'' to win a Grand Slam, that is, and told television fans she was a good bet for the trophy.

But Williams seemed startlingly nonchalant at the most important points of her match against Barbara Schwartz of Austria, and later at the postmatch news conference she seemed pretty nonchalant, too.

"You win some, you lose some,'' she said. "I'll just have to do my best in the next Grand Slam now,'' said Williams. "This one is not mine. There's no need to be sad or depressed because it's only a small part of life.''

Williams's 2-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-3 fourth-round exit was her quickest in the last seven Grand Slam tournaments.

Agassi, though, seemed to tap into some fierce desire deep down, that told him he could turn things around even though he was trailing badly in the second set.

"Today was a huge, huge obstacle in my way,'' said Agassi, after his 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, 6-1 victory. "I felt good about not just winning, but how I won. I like the way I played.''

A first-round loser a year ago, Agassi is now trying to become the first American man in 61 years to complete a career Grand Slam.

Pete Sampras tries that every year he comes here. But for whatever reason, Sampras has psyched himself out of playing well on clay. Agassi has done the opposite.

Agassi suddenly turned the match around with offspeed shots, junk lobs, lunging retrievals and a go-for-broke offense that Moya couldn't handle.

"As long as I played tennis, everything was under control,'' Moya said. "Then I started thinking about something else. The problem was that I was leading pretty easily, 6-4, 4-1 with two breaks. I thought everything was done. If it was more tight, I would have been focused. When I wanted to play well again, I couldn't.''

In the first set, Moya was hurting me, stretching me around the court, just giving me a beating,'' Agassi said. "I just felt like if I'm going to lose this, I need to lose it (hitting) my shots and playing bigger. There's always a chance you could miss, and the match is over quickly. But once I got the offense, I actually believed I could win. I felt like I was hurting him.''

When Moya's final forehand landed weakly in the bottom of the net after he chased down a lob by Agassi, the Spaniard dropped his racket in disgust. Moments later, he gave it away to a fan.

Agassi was runner-up at Roland Garros in 1990 and 1991, and a semi-finalist twice. He lost in the first round last year, skipped the year before that, and went out in the second round in 1996.

Almost 30 years old, he takes great satisfaction in just feeling like "I can still do it''.

"You can believe it all you want, but until you do it, it's just, you know, it's just a bunch of talk,'' he said.

AP