Agassi, Sampras to Meet in Final : Australian Open: Krickstein retires in third set against Agassi before court is flooded.

Andre Agassi’s flair for dramatics does not extend to acts of nature or the physical condition of his opponent. It only seems that way.

Because of a sudden and violent thunderstorm, Agassi and Aaron Krickstein began their semifinal match of the Australian Open under the roof of center court today. Agassi, playing an overpowering all-court game, overwhelmed Krickstein, the only unseeded player to reach the semifinals.

After the the third game of the third set, Krickstein was overwhelmed by an injured groin and defaulted. Agassi won, 6-4, 6-4, 3-0.

He will face Pete Sampras, who defeated Michael Chang on Thursday, in Sunday’s final.

Had the default not ended the match, nature would have. Only moments after the end of the match, a rush of water poured onto the court, in moments covering it under six inches of water.

“You think when you have a stadium with a roof, you have all the angles covered,” Agassi said.

The cause of the flood was announced as a blocked storm drain.

The flood created the possibility that center court won’t be ready for the final, or for Saturday’s women’s final between Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Mary Pierce, and another court might have to be used.

Seen from the stands, center court looked like a swimming pool. Natasha Zvereva, who had just played in the women’s doubles finals, danced and capered with partner Gigi Fernandez. Lindsay Davenport clowned and splashed water with ball kids. The crowd was delighted by the sight of the very formally dressed center court announcer calling for calm, while his pinstriped trousers were rolled up to his knobby knees.

Krickstein, who said he had injured his groin in the first game of the first set, played sluggishly.

“I’d already been having a problem with my (right) hamstring,” Krickstein said. “For me to beat Andre, I was going to have to be 100%. I would have quit (earlier) in any other tournament, but somehow I was hoping it would go away.”

Agassi has not lost a set.

The biggest revelation during this tournament may be for tennis fans, who had come to view Sampras, the No. 1 player in the world, as a talented but expressionless vacuum.

Sampras’ emotional win over Jim Courier revealed emphatically that within Sampras’ concave chest beats a heart bursting with humanity. But his semifinal victory Thursday evening over Chang showed that even while Sampras appears to shrug off errors and faults as inconsequential, he’s desperately fighting to win.

That’s the usual posture against Chang, for whom fighting and perseverance is a way of life on the court. The match lasted three hours and the score, 6-7 (8-6), 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, reflected that it had been a struggle.

Particularly for Sampras, who had only 36 hours earlier come from two sets behind to defeat Courier in five sets after nearly four hours.

For the first time anyone can remember, Sampras showed emotion. In fact, he gushed emotion on center court against Courier. Already preoccupied by the illness of his coach Tim Gullikson, who had to leave Australia because of a heart ailment, Sampras’ control gave out when a fan called out for him to “Do it for your coach.”

While an international television audience watched, Sampras sobbed into a towel during a changeover and had trouble controlling himself while playing.

“I think people understand that I’m normal, I have feelings like everyone else, and that I’m not a robot out there,” Sampras said.

Chang, seeded fifth, served more aces than Sampras and had fewer unforced errors but converted only two of eight break points.