Courier Sent Packing as Spaniards Rule Day : French Open: Bruguera and Berasategui win their matches to reach Sunday’s final.

The French Open went south Friday as Spain’s Sergi Bruguera and Alberto Berasategui advanced to the men’s final in a dazzling display of clay-court tennis.

Bruguera overwhelmed two-time champion Jim Courier, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, 6-3, in one semifinal, and No. 24 Berasategui kept his record spotless with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 victory over No. 46 Magnus Larsson of Sweden in the other. Berasategui, 20, has yet to lose a set in his third French Open.

So, two good friends will become foes Sunday on Center Court in the first all-Spanish final of any Grand Slam tournament. They will follow another Spanish finalist, Aranxta Sanchez Vicario, who plays Mary Pierce today for the women’s title.

Which of the men will the Spanish favor?

“I don’t know,” Bruguera said. “Call and ask.”

Although not the biggest names in tennis, Bruguera and Berasategui have a lot to offer to all those weekend hackers. Like junkball pitchers, the Spaniards have won with guile, happily frustrating big servers with spinning forehands that lope to the baseline.

On a blustery spring day in Paris, No. 6 Bruguera and No. 7 Courier met in a repeat of last year’s final, won by the Spaniard in a dramatic five-setter. Yet, when the match began at noon Friday, Center Court was less than half full.

When Courier lost his serve in the third game, Bruguera, who played only one Grand Slam match between the 1993 and ’94 French Opens, was in fine form. And it seemed he would win his sixth consecutive straight-set match after taking a 5-2 lead in the second set. Courier had lost his serve and his nerve in the fourth game when he was given a warning for uttering an obscenity.

Courier’s outburst resulted from a foot-fault. In the next game, he directed his anger inward, screaming at himself to swing at Bruguera’s deep volleys after he had let one drop that he thought was long.

But it was not until the ninth game, when the two had a rally befitting a Grand Slam semifinal, that Courier quickened the pace. He became more aggressive and dictated Bruguera’s movement. Taking five consecutive games, Courier won the set and tied the score.

Luis Bruguera said he was satisfied by his son’s reaction to that.

“He’s not a player who goes down easily,” the elder Bruguera said. “He had no fear at that point.”

Luis Bruguera said Sergi’s fighting spirit is his finest quality. Courier knows something about perseverance, too.

But instead of finding his rhythm, Courier made some crucial mental mistakes in the third set, and the chance to reach his fourth consecutive final in Paris slipped away.

“I was feeling that I had more power than him, that I can move him around and he cannot attack as well as last year,” Bruguera said.

Courier was disappointed with his play.

“What I lacked a little bit (at) the defining moments of the match was aggression,” he said. “I only seemed to find my aggression when I was down.”

Although it worked for him in the second set, once Courier fell behind in the third and fourth sets Bruguera increased the pressure. He sent arching forehands into the deep recesses of the court, and Courier returned many into the net.

Despite the swirling gusts that kicked up dust devils on the red clay, Bruguera had an outstanding service game. He had seven aces, only one double fault. Courier, who made 64 unforced errors, had eight double faults.

“To beat Jim here is not easy,” said Manuel Santana, Spain’s two-time French Open champion from the 1960s. “On clay, (Sergi) is the best player in the world.”

That might be true, but anyone who has watched Berasategui’s clever game is expecting Sunday’s final to be the kind of match that strains necks. Yet Berasategui, who grew up in a Basque village near Bilbao, Spain, is not sure what to make of his run.

“I don’t really believe it,” he said. “Someone has to come up to me and wake me up.”

Playing in a French Open final against Bruguera is not something he thought possible. Berasategui grew up playing soccer and surfing the rugged coast of northwest Spain. But when his father, owner of an industrial construction firm, built a tennis court near his office, Berasategui took up the sport. He developed as a junior player, but nothing suggested such a rise.

“I simply can’t imagine this situation,” said Imanol Bollegui, Berasategui’s youth coach.

Larsson, Berasategui’s semifinal opponent, could.

With the wind playing havoc with his serve, Larsson was powerless. The lanky Swede needed to serve and volley effectively to stop Berasategui from running him off the court.

“Berasategui’s forehand is so fast and so quick it is really hard to read where the ball goes,” Larsson said.

It goes to the French Open final, where Berasategui becomes the first unseeded player to reach the championship match since Mikael Pernfors in 1986.

Tennis Notes

Lindsay Davenport and Lisa Raymond advanced to the women’s doubles final with a 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (8-6), 6-4 victory over Amanda Coetzer of South Africa and Ines Gorrochategui of Argentina. They will face Gigi Fernandez and Natalia Zvereva of Belarus, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 winners over France’s Julie Halard and Nathalie Tauziat. . . . Bryon Black, a former USC star, and Jonathan Stark, formerly of Stanford, will play Sweden’s Jan Apell and Jonas Bjorkman in the men’s doubles final.

Larisa Neiland of Ukraine and Andrei Olhovskiy of Russia will play Kristie Boogert and Menno Oosting of the Netherlands in the mixed doubles final.

For the record: Steffi Graf lost to Monica Seles in the 1993 Australian Open final. Graf’s recent performance in Grand Slam events was incorrect in a story in The Times on Friday.