MONTE CARLO, April 21: An all American clash between in-form Todd Martin and Andre Agassi will trigger a struggle for the world's number one spot at the Monte Carlo Open today.The winner of this mouth-watering first round clash will meet Pete Sampras for a second round tie which could help decide the battle as the men's court season gains momentum.If he wins this match, Sampras would have an excellent chance to reclaim his number one position.As the tournament started with lacklustre first round matches yesterday - the top eight seeds have byes to the second round - the only certainty was that Marcelo Rios would lose his number one ranking whatever happened at the end of this week. The Chilean won here last year and will lose more than 500 points as he had to pull out with tennis elbow.In three previous appearance here, Sampras has never won a match.and it will not be easy to break the run against either Agassi or Martin. A week ago, everybody would have favoured a clash between the twoformer world number ones. But Martin made it even more exciting by winning the Barcelona tournament on Sunday, proving he could be an even tougher opponent to Sampras than Agassi on clay.As for Agassi, he has staged a spectacular recovery from the lower reaches of the tour rankings to 22nd in the world this season and a win over Sampras would confirm he was back to his very best.
