PARIS -- The Spanish Armada is back -- although if you're envisioning a cadre of rip-roaring, free-flowing romantic stylists flashing their loosely-strung sabres over the high seas at Roland Garros, you should be advised that of the two conquistadors who will contest the French Open on Sunday, one is a skinny guy called "Mosquito" and the other, at the ultimately grandest moment of his distinguished clay court career (finally winning a Grand Slam semifinal against another Spaniard, of course) ... well, this guy wasn't Zorro so much as he was Bozo, falling practically on his face.

	Albert Costa is now on an eight-match winning streak agaisnt his fellow Spaniards.

That would be Albert Costa Casals (no relation to either Bob Costas or Pablo Casals), ranked No. 22 in the world, who upset Alex Corretja (ranked 20th), his neighbor in the Barcelona suburb of Sant Cugat, closest friend on tour and best man at his upcoming wedding (next Friday) by 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. But not before Costa struggled to overcome his more acclaimed "witness" (that's what they call best men in Europe) -- and a reputation for gagging on the important occasions.

Attempting to serve out his first semifinal victory in a major on Friday, sure enough, Costa flipped a give-up backhand dropshot, which barely made it to the net. On the first match point he got a bad bounce and mis-hit a forehand far up into the cloudy skies and nearly all the way back to Spain. And on the third -- who knows, the Barcelona bro's might still be pushing each other across the heavy dirt if Corretja's shot hadn't kept floating and floating. Because in a furious effort to reach the ball, which he couldn't tell would be wide, Costa sprawled headlong onto the brick-red shale -- a (how you say) belly flop in any language. And he simply lay there.

"The way you fell, you should not have won," Corretja said, smiling, as the two fast friends embraced at the net.

But Costa was the winner, the survivor, the holder of bragging rights in the 'hood, and he would move into the championship match against his countryman, Juan Carlos Ferrero -- who followed up taking out Andre Agassi by pulling off a nifty upset of his own, beating the rarely inspired Russian wolfhound, Marat Safin, in straight sets. Costa also was obviously content. "Completely happy. In tennis, the greatest moment I ever had, for sure," he said. But it was one of the most embarrassing denouements since Elvis left the building and was found sprawled over his toilet. "I feel a little bit like a stupid," Costa said.

Albert -- "You can call me Al," the winner explained earlier in the week without crediting Paul Simon for scripting his press briefings -- used to be known by his birth name of Alberto until he got firmly Catalanized by living in Lerida and training with the rest of the Armada that made Barcelona their port of embarkation. Of course, he also used to lose regularly to Corretja -- "We've played twelve times on tour but probably a thousand more in Spanish tournaments and two million times in practice," the loser said -- and to Gustavo Kuerten plus all the Argentines to boot until this breakthrough French.

The 5-foot-11, 165-pounder will turn 27 in a few weeks and after his girlfriend, Cristina Ventura -- yeah, yeah, the same one he's going to marry -- gave birth to twin daughters last year, Costa has seemed more calm, relaxed and motivated. "I try to play more aggressive and more ambitious. I can't try to hit 40 times and not try to wrap up the game. I have the inner peace necessary to score points," he said. "You have to be courageous, not at the baseline always, serve with strength. Oh, and I don't feel like if I lose, is a drama or something."

Actually, Costa's Roland Garros has been filled with mini-dramas. In the first round, he had to cope with the onslaught of media hype surrounding the French wonder boy, Richard Gasquet, 15, who took Costa apart in their very first set. From then, though, the veteran dirtballer -- he's won 11 clay-court tournaments, more than any active player except Kuerten -- swept Gasquet in straight sets. He also de-throned the French holder Kuerten, to whom he had lost six straight matches, in the fourth round, and surprised the tournament's iron man, Guillermo Canas of Argentina, 6-0 in the fifth set in the quarters.

Moreover, Costa is now on an eight-match winning streak against his fellow Spaniards -- including not only two against Corretja, here and at the quarters in Barcelona, but also one against his opponent on Sunday, Ferrero, whom he beat in the first round at Hamburg. If there's something in the water in Spain that produced such good results this week -- earlier Friday the Spanish World Cup soccer team came from behind to avoid an embarrassing loss to Paraguay, which would blow Costa and Ferrero out of the headlines in El Mundo Deportivo -- Just Call Me Al wasn't having any of it. "We just eat good," he said, smiling. "You know, jamon jabugo (cured ham). That's why we fight like this on the court. You should try it."

Ham may not be enough on Sunday against Ferrero -- the champion of Monte Carlo whose vastly improved serve has had the experts picking him for the title since he recovered from an ankle injury early in the tournament.

"On Sunday, Albert will have to control his nerves, his stress, accept the kind of game that will be in front of him and be aggressive ," said Corretja, who lost to Kuerten in the finals here last year. "The fact that I won or didn't win last year doesn't really matter all that much ... Life goes on. Winning a Grand Slam is not really that vital. And I hope he feels this way."

Easy for the best man -- who wasn't exactly the best on Friday -- to say. But winning the French Open might be a fairly vital wedding gift for Christina.

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