Kafelnikov powers past Norman, to play Agassi for title

Agassi was the toast of the tournament when he came from behind to beat Pete Sampras in five sets Friday night.

It will be the world No 2’s third Grand Slam final following his wins in the 1996 French Open and last year’s Australian Open.

The match failed to live up to expectations and Norman’s service was broken a total of six times.

The 25-year-old Russian has dropped just one set in the tournament so far — in his first round defeat of German Jens Knippschild.

He missed the Australian Open in 1997 with a broken right finger and again in 1998 with a sprained left knee before triumphing last year with a 4-6 6-0 6-3 7-6 win over Thomas Enquist.

Norman recovered magnificentlyfrom losing the first set in his quarter-final against German No 4 seed Nicolas Kiefer but never looked like repeating it against Kafelnikov.

His serve and booming baseline forehands never fired and the power and stamina evident earlier in the tournament was missing.

Norman, whose ranking zoomed from 52 in 1998 to 15 last year when he collected five tournaments, has exceeded his previous Grand Slam best of a quarter-final at the 1997 French Open.

He had failed to get past the second round in four previous attempts here.

Kafelnikov and Agassi have met nine times, mostly on hardcourt, with the American leading 5-4, including wins in their last three contests.