New york, Sept 12: French Open champion Andre Agassi recovered from a sluggish start to beat Australian Open champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov for a US Open finals berth and reclaim the world number one ranking.Second seed Agassi ousted the third-seeded Russian 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, yesterday to reach today's final against seventh seed Todd Martin, who beat Cedric Pioline 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 to reach his second Grand Slam final.``It's really exciting. The US Open final is what it's all it's about,'' Agassi said. ``Todd is playing so well. He's a big guy who serves well, returns well and can dictate play if you don't get a lot of returns.''The victory also means Agassi will replace injured Pete Sampras as world number one in tomorrow's new ATP rankings. Agassi spent three weeks atop the ratings earlier this year and will be tough to catch in 1999.Agassi, now in his fourth US Open final, won his only title here in 1994 and sees winning his fifth career Slam title as more important than his rankings boost. ``A manhas to have his priorities,'' Agassi said. ``The US Open final is definitely leading that race.''Agassi became the first man since 1994 to play in three Slam finals in a row, since Sampras won the 1993 Wimbledon and US Open and 1994 Australian Open titles.His French Open triumph in June made Agassi only the fifth man to collect the career Grand Slam. Agassi is 34-4 since the start of the French Open.Agassi has an an 11-match win streak and has lost only seven service games in that span entering the championship match-up of 29-year-old Americans at the $ 14.5 million hardcourt event.Martin, who survived two five-set matches to get this far, needed only 96 minutes to reach his first Slam final since a straight-set loss to Sampras at the 1994 Australian Open. Martin is 5-9 against Agassi.Kafelnikov captured the first set in 21 minutes while Agassi struggled with his first serves, connecting on only 36 per cent in the first two sets. But he broke Kafelnikov with a volley winner in the fourth game ofthe second set and held out to level the match.Kafelnikov sent backhands long to surrender breaks in the first and last games of the third set to put Agassi in command and netted another backhand in the sixth game of the fourth set for the deciding break.Agassi used serves of 126 and 123 mph to hold for a 5-2 lead in the fourth but squandered two match points and was forced to save two break points in the final game before hitting a forehand to the corner on match point that Kafelnikov could only tap helplessly into the net.
