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Agassi too good; Rios routed

The 'Andre Agassi Express' gained momentum at the U.S. Open yesterday as the second seed and 1994 champion rolled into the quarter-finals with a straight-sets victory over Arnaud Clement.

On the Labour Day holiday, Agassi worked for under two hours as he honed his game for the stretch run in a dominating 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 victory over the 52nd-ranked Frenchman, who had upset 15th seed Nicolas Kiefer in the previous round.

''I managed to feel good about every aspect of my game,'' said Agassi, who is on the kind of roll that visitors to his native Las Vegas only dream about.

Including his historic French Open victory that made him one of only five men ever to have won all four Grand Slams, Agassi has won 32 of his last 36 matches. Three of those four losses were to Pete Sampras, who is on the sidelines with a back injury.

''I feel great. I haven't extended myself too much,'' said Agassi, who has dropped just one set in four matches. ''Now I can save the best for last, which is what you need to win a tournament like this.''

Third-seeded Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov stayed on course for a semi-final showdown with Agassi by dismissing good friend and practice partner Andrei Medvedev, the French Open runner-up, 7-6, 6-1, 6-0 in 95 minutes.

''You can't ask for anything better than that,'' said the Australian Open champion.

Medvedev, who needed five gruelling sets to win his previous match, later complained of experiencing weakness during the lopsided contest with Kafelnikov, and the affable Ukrainian promised to give the fans a better show next year.

While Kafelnikov likely awaits down the road, Agassi seems to have a personal troop of French minesweepers clearing his path for him.

First Clement took rising German star Kiefer out of his way and now French qualifier Nicolas Escude has posted a stunning 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 upset of 10th seed Marcelo Rios, who had figured to give Agassi a contest in the quarter-finals.

While the moody, unpredictable Chilean is capable of losing at any time, it had seemed highly unlikely that Rios, who held the world No. 1 ranking for six weeks last year, could be bounced by a 136th-ranked qualifier, much less in straight sets.

''I got tired and he played better at the big moments,'' said Rios, who blew a chance to extend the match when Escude saved a set point at 4-5 in the third. The Frenchman then broke the 10th seed for a 6-5 lead and served out the match at love.

There were no surprises in women's fourth-round play. Seventh seed Serena Williams dropped her first set to crafty veteran Conchita Martinez, but came roaring back to defeat the 16th-seeded Spaniard 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 and reach her first career Grand Slam quarter-final.

Williams, whose third-seeded older sister Venus advanced to the quarters on Sunday, left no doubt that the first set was an aberration by racing out to a 4-0 second-set lead on the strength of her punishing groundstrokes. Martinez was barely hanging on the rest of the way.

Fifth seed Mary Pierce later grabbed a final-eight berth with a 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) victory over Sabine Applemans of Belgium.

Pierce came back from 0-4 down in the second set and saved a set point in the tiebreaker before extending her record against Applemans to a perfect 7-0.

In the opening match on a hot, muggy day that defied predictions of a rainy washout, fourth seed Monica Seles ended the crowd-pleasing run of a rejuvenated Jennifer Capriati 6-4, 6-3.

The match was played on the eighth anniversary of their classic 1991 semi-final in which Capriati came within two points of reaching the final at age 15 before the 17-year-old Seles won a third-set tie-break en route to the first of her two consecutive U.S. Open titles.

Capriati left the match encouraged by her resurgent game but left her post-match interview in tears after asking that her much-publicised troubled past be closed for discussion once and for all.

''I made mistakes by rebelling and acting out in confused ways. But it was all due to the fact I was very young and I was experiencing my adolescence,'' Capriati read from a prepared statement. ''Most of you know how hard that can be. When you do it in front of the world, it is even harder.''

Agassi was intent on not revisiting a more recent past, when his French Open run was nearly derailed by Clement in the second round.

Clement was two points from winning that match before Agassi ran away with the fifth set. Agassi was having none of such drama on Monday as he controlled matters from start to finish.

About facing the upset-minded Escude, agassi said: ''I have no intentions of making any further dreams come true for him.''

So it's four down and three to go for Agassi. ''When you're in the quarters, you can see the finish line,'' he said.

UNI