Williams’ Crown Is Open and Shout Case : Men: Agassi on top of the world as he beats Kafelnikov and moves into all-American final against Martin.

Andre Agassi, the man from the next planet over, where they have a hard court in every backyard and grow tennis balls on trees, continued to rocket his way toward the U.S. Open men’s singles title Saturday.

In the semifinals of an earthly happening called Super Saturday, Agassi beat a mere mortal named Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and will play another, Todd Martin, in today’s final at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Agassi’s 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 victory made him No. 1 in the world, officially beginning with the new rankings Monday. With the way he is playing, and with his expected victory over Martin, they might just as well extend that ranking to the rest of the universe. Right now, the 29-year-old from Las Vegas is in his own stratosphere.

“This is his year, 1999. It belongs to him,” said Kafelnikov, a great player who had a great tournament, who had a chance to be No. 1 himself with a win Saturday, and who was basically reduced to a retriever and counter-puncher by Agassi’s dominating strokes after the first set.

“I felt like I was a half-step behind every time. He put so much pressure on me that I was struggling to recover the ball. He never gave me time today.”

Martin started the day with a 1-hour 36-minute thrashing of a tired-looking 30-year-old Cedric Pioline of France. The 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 win by Martin, 29, created an all-American final, even though it wasn’t the one most talked about when the Williams sisters played--and before Serena won but Venus lost--in the women’s singles semifinals Friday.

Agassi’s run has been superb, starting with his French Open victory in May that made him one of only five players to have won each of the four Grand Slam titles. He followed that with a trip to the Wimbledon final, where he lost to Pete Sampras, and then embarked on a highly successful summer hard-court run that has brought him to his third consecutive Grand Slam final, something not achieved on the men’s tour since Jim Courier in 1993 at the Australian, French and Wimbledon.

Against Kafelnikov, Agassi seemed to take the first set to dial in his gun sights. The 6-1 setback was temporary. Quickly, the lines were his targets and he was hitting one bull’s-eye after another.

An example of his domination came on Kafelnikov’s serve at 3-2 of the final set, with Agassi holding a break point that, if converted, would effectively end the match. Kafelnikov, certainly no shrinking violet, met the challenge with a 125-mph first serve. That renders most players, even the best ones on the tour, fairly helpless.

Not Agassi. He smacked it back faster than it came, and deeper than a stunned Kafelnikov could handle, forcing him to lift a weak answer into the net. It was an all-world shot from a player who is currently master of the men’s tennis universe.

Martin wasn’t anywhere on the map of most tennis prognosticators coming into this tournament.

He was an aging journeyman who had a fine career, had one Grand Slam final appearance, in the 1994 Australian, and certainly seemed to be in the twilight of his tennis life, especially in light of a dramatic and draining Davis Cup loss in Boston in July.

New life came here when, as the seventh-seeded player, he inherited a fairly open half of the draw with the injury departures of Sampras and Patrick Rafter, seeded first and fourth. Then, despite a stomach virus, he fought through a late-night match against Britain’s Greg Rusedski, coming back from two sets, a service break and 15-40 down to win, and got himself to the final with an impressive domination of Pioline.

“I think he played too good,” said Pioline, making it clear that little else need be said.

Martin’s advance through the semifinal also helped ease the memory of a similar Grand Slam opportunity gone bad. In the 1996 Wimbledon semifinals, Martin led in the fifth set, 5-1, and lost to MaliVai Washington, saying later he simply choked, that he could barely breathe.

Saturday, he said he didn’t feel like this meant he now had the monkey off his back, but added, “I just feel it [the last two games against Pioline] was a good opportunity to be in the same situation and do something good with it.”

Despite Martin’s huge serve, most tennis followers don’t expect him to be able to play in Agassi’s neighborhood, which these days is somewhere on Mars.

For his part, Agassi is doing his best to keep his feet on terra firma and his focus on this planet. He was asked how he would be able to regain his edge for the final after such an emotional high against Kafelnikov.

“I’m in the U.S. Open final,” he said. “All I have to do is turn on the TV tonight.”

A satellite feed, presumably.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MEN’S FINAL

ANDRE AGASSI (2) vs. TODD MARTIN (7)

1 p.m. today

Channel 2

MAJOR ROLE

Mentor Zina Garrison was an early believer in Serena Williams.

Page 15

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Agassi vs. Martin

Head-to-head records of men’s U.S. Open finalists Andre Agassi (2) and Todd Martin (7). Agassi leads series, 9-5. Agassi lost only two sets (to Justin Gimelstob and third-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov) on his way to the final:

* 1990: Indianapolis, hard, R16, Agassi, 7-6, 6-4; * 1993: Memphis, hard, QF, Martin, 6-1, 7-6; Montreal, hard, QF, Martin, 7-5, 6-3; Cincinnati, hard, R64, Agassi, 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.

* 1994: Wimbledon, grass, R16, Martin, 6-3, 7-5, 6-7, 4-6, 6-1; U.S. Open, hard, SF, Agassi, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3; Stockholm, carpet, R16, Agassi, 6-7, 6-4, 6-1; Paris Indoor, carpet, R16, Agassi, 6-2, 7-5.

* 1995: Washington, hard, SF, Agassi, 6-4, 7-6.

* 1996: Indian Wells, hard, R16, Agassi, 7-6, 2-6, 7-6.

* 1997: Stuttgart Indoor, carpet, R64, Martin, 6-4, 6-4.

* 1998: Monte Carlo, clay, R64, Agassi, 6-2, 6-1; Paris Indoor, carpet, QF, Martin, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.

* 1999: Washington, hard, SF, Agassi, 6-4, 6-2.