PARIS -- So it's not true, after all. Ossama bin Laden is still alive. And so is Juan Carlos Ferrero. Which means Andre Agassi became a dead duck at the French Open on Thursday -- a 6-3, 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 quarterfinal victim of Ferrero, the young 22-year-old from outside Valencia, Spain, who in the midst of reaching his third straight semifinal at Roland Garros has overcome:

	Andre Agassi spent the week facing players he'd never played before.

1. A serious early-round ankle injury.

2. Such strong doubts about that injury that Nicolas Coutelot, who lost a five-setter to Ferrero, winning only two games in the last two sets, accused him of a "trick ... a stupid thing, a lie. It's like if you said bin Laden was dead. It's not true."

And 3. A rain-induced, Agassi-demanded suspension of the match on Wednesday night, while "The Little Mosquito" was not so much leading 6-3, 1-0, but totally dominating in the wet, heavy mud of the main stadium court.

"They decided (to stop) with Andre," Fererro said, speaking of the tournament officials who called off the match the night before. "That was kind of strange (because) they kept playing on all the other courts ... Perhaps this wasn't fine, it wasn't all right. But you should not try to detract from (the match.)."

OK, OK. But, honestly, Double A didn't roll in on the turnip truck when he won all those Grand Slams, including the one here in '99. The Las Vegas showman knows all the slots, the chips, the edges -- Danny Ocean looking for one final casino score -- and he came out in the clearer, drier conditions on Thursday resolved to move around the kid whom he'd never played before, swat for the lines, maybe even use some more of those newly-minted drop shots to test Ferrero's ankle.

When Agassi got an overrule at 5-all in the second set, The 'Skito -- a noted whiner and complainer even as he became the No. 5 player in the world last year (he's fallen off a bit and is the 11th seed here) -- got upset, sulked and lost his serve whereupon Agassi held his own and evened the match.

	“	He stepped up his game more than me being deflated. Give the kid credit. He plays a lot of matches like this, 6-7, 6-2, 6-7. Whether it's frustration or confidence, he lets his game fly. He plays with loose strings, hits a big ball, moves really well so he's always looking to play offense. He's really hard to stop. ”
		— Andre Agassi

But Ferrero quickly jumped ahead again, 5-2. Agassi for all his power and experience could not get the ball past him; the American's usual base hits to the corners kept being swallowed up by the quick, angular Spanish 6-footer and sent back into the empty spaces on Agassi's side of the net. Ferrero had three set points at 5-3, though, but couldn't get it done. Then, the key game, again the 5-all game. After Andre fluttered a tantalizing drop shot winner, he had three break points on Ferrero's serve. But "I had a sitter backhand and jacked it," he said. Then: "I caught the tape." Next: "Ran around a second (serve), took my chance up the line, caught the tape again."

Nobody knew it at the time, but that was his last chance. After Fererro escaped and held, Agassi smacked a seventh double fault in the next game and the set was gone. "He got out of jail," Agassi said. "He stepped up his game more than me being deflated. Give the kid credit. He plays a lot of matches like this, 6-7, 6-2, 6-7. Whether it's frustration or confidence, he lets his game fly. He plays with loose strings, hits a big ball, moves really well so he's always looking to play offense. He's really hard to stop."

Impossible, really, in the fourth set, when Ferrero turned Court Philippe Chatrier into the Mosquito Coast by taking an overwhelming 5-1 lead and just slowly sucking the blood out of the man who was facing still another new experience at the French. "Nobody I've played here I've ever played before," Agassi said, rattling off his younger opponents -- or at least all of them after Eric Prodon in the first round, whom he referred to as "The Qualifier -- from (David) Sanchez to (Tommy) Robredo to (Paul-Henri) Mathieu to Ferrero.

"That's somewhat of a disadvantage for me because guys see me play and I don't have a chance to see the other guys play."

"I used to watch him on television when he played (Pete) Sampras in all those finals," Ferrero said of his vanquished foe. "One of the greatest players ever. I think his prestige is very, very great."

The resume' of the slender, tousle-haired resident of Villena in the Alicante isn't exactly suffering either, as he keeps building his exquisite record on clay. Ferrero won the second most significant dirt court title in Monte Carlo last month -- and the only man to beat him here in two previous appearances is the fabulous Brazilian, Gustavo Kuerton, who went on to take the title in both 2000 and 200l. Then there's already the storybook recovery Ferrero -- his fellow Spaniards call him "Chavalito" which means "Little Kid" -- made from that ankle he twisted in practice last week.

	“	Nobody I've played here I've ever played before ... That's somewhat of a disadvantage for me because guys see me play and I don't have a chance to see the other guys play. ”
		— Andre Agassi

"I couldn't even walk. The physician said to try to carry weight to see if I could do it," buzzed the 'Skito late Thursday. "Well, I was feeling terrible. I had a lot of pain and I felt I was unable to play."

Gee, they shoot horses, don't they? Forget a doctor. Get this guy a rifle before he has to face the huge, power-hitting mongrel from Russia Marat Safin, who shattered Parisian hearts by taking out the last Frenchman, Sebastien Grosjean.

That occasion, by the way, will be practically a Spanish picnic what with Alex Corretja from Barcelona playing Albert Costa from Lerida in one semifinal and Safin, having trained much of his early youth right there in Valencia near Fererro's home, joining the three native Spaniards on Friday.

It's BYOP. Bring Your Own Paella.

Quote of the waiting room
After driving 18 hours roundtrip in the middle of his rain-interrupted quarterfinal loss to Corretja -- Paris to Dissen, Germany, to Paris -- so that he could be with his wife for the birth of their son, Marius, Romanian Andrei Pavel was asked how much Marius weighed.

"Who?" he said.

"Marius," a reporter said.

"I saw him for two hours. Fifty one centimeters and about 3200 grams. He's two weeks early, so he's not that big. But he's big enough. He wanted out, so, you know, (I) couldn't do anything about that."

Curry Kirkpatrick is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.