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At home on hard courts Corretja, Agassi reach finals of Legg Mason Classic
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Top-seeded Andre Agassi played his strongest match of the tournament and routed 14th-seed David Prinosil of Germany 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the final of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic on Saturday night. Trying to prevent Agassi from winning his sixth Legg Mason title on Sunday will be second-seeded Alex Corretja, who beat his doubles partner and third-seeded Nicolas Kiefer 7-6 (2), 6-2. Agassi used his powerful return to break serve three times in the first set, and again at 4-3 in the second advancing to the finals for the third consecutive year. Agassi broke his serve in the first game of the match and dominated rally after rally, hitting 16 winners and forcing the German into 36 unforced errors. "He put me under pressure, but I had no chance in the first set," Prinosil said. "When I had the chances he came up with a good shot, that's why he won." Agassi's night was only beginning. He returned to the court to play his semifinals doubles match with partner Sargis Sargsian. Tour players are not required to speak to the media if they still have a match to play in the same day. In the earlier singles match, Corretja broke Kiefer four times, the most important one coming when Kiefer served for the first set at 6-5. After squandering a set point earlier in the game, Kiefer double-faulted to send the set to a tiebreaker. Kiefer never recovered, losing the final five points of the tiebreaker and five consecutive games in the second set to fall behind 5-1. "He had set point, and from that point made a couple of mistakes and gave me the break," Corretja said. "After the break, I played good tennis." After their match, Kiefer and Corretja were scheduled to play a quarterfinals doubles match against Thomas Shamida of Japan and Myles Wakefield of South Africa. However, Corretja and Kiefer retired from that match. Had they won that match it would have set up a match against Agassi and Sargsian, after Agassi's singles match.
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