Agassi remains on target to set ranking record

Andre Agassi's desire to become the oldest year-end No 1, at the age of 32, enabled him to overcome Argentina's Gaston Gaudio, 6-4, 6-7, 6-4, last night to advance to the third round of the Paris Masters. The American's enthusiasm was matched by the tennis devotees of this city, 14,946 of whom provided a record attendance for any day in the 17 years of the tournament.

Gaudio, who dictated the course of the pounding points in the second set after saving two break points in the opening game, which took 11 minutes, took advantage of Agassi's lapses in the tie-break to win the shoot-out, 7-1. Agassi, under pressure in the third and fifth games of the third set, recovered to break for 5-3, only for Gaudio to retaliate when Agassi served for the match. The Argentian's resistance ended there. He was broken in the next game, albeit unlucky to suffer a dodgy line call at 15-15.

Australia's Lleyton Hewitt, the reigning No 1, defeated Jarkko Nieminen, of Finland, 6-2, 6-4, and will play Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the third round. If the unseeded Kafelnikov wins the tournament he has pledged to donate the $402,000 (£260,000) prize-money to families of the Moscow theatre hostage victims. In October last year, after winning the the Moscow tournament for the fifth year in a row, Kafelnikov made a gift of his $137,000 prize to families of victims of the Russian plane disaster in the Black Sea near his home town of Sochi.

If Tim Henman's Czech opponent, Radek Stepanek, performs a scissors-kick today it will be his way of paying respect to his mentor, Petr Korda, rather than an eccentric celebration of having eliminated the British No 1 from the race to the Masters Cup in Shanghai.

"It doesn't matter to me if Tim is playing Shanghai or not," Stepanek said after causing a stir in the opening round here on Monday night by defeating Gustavo Kuerten, three-times a winner of the French Open, 7-3 in a third set tie-break. "For me every match is important," the qualifier from Karvina added. "I don't look left or right, if it's Tim Henman or whoever else. I'm just going to do my best on the court and try to win."

Korda's trademark scissors-kick is an abiding memory of his triumph at the 1998 Australian Open, from where he made daily telephone calls to Nottingham to seek advice from Tony Pickard, Stefan Edberg's erstwhile coach. Stepanek, due to mark his 24th birthday next month, decided it would be useful to tap into Korda's expertise.

Stepanek was ranked No 620 in the world when he approached Korda for help in November last year. "Petr thought about it and said, 'OK, I will help you. But you will listen to everything, and I guarantee if you listen you are going to play US Open main draw, and at the end of the year you are going to be in the top 70'. And it has happened."

Stepanek is currently ranked No 68. "Everything is coming together. I'm practising with my coach [Tomas Krupa] every day. Tomas is also doing a good job with me."

The Paris crowd saw the 15th seed Sjeng Schalken book his place in the third round by defeating the local favourite Arnaud Clement 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.