PARIS, June 6 AFP - At 25 many thought Gaston Gaudio's best days were behind him as another brood of talented youngsters from Argentina's claycourts threatened to submerge him.

Blessed with a marvellous one-handed backhand and a thumping forehand, the Buenos Aires baseliner was being left behind by the new crew, notably Guillermo Coria and David Nalbandian. Not any more.

Gaudio stunned the 22-year-old Nalbandian with a straight sets win in the French Open semi-finals and on Sunday he outlasted Coria in a dramatic all-Argentina, five-set final to realise his lifelong dream.

After first picking up a racket at the age of six, Gaudio finished number two junior in Argentina in 1996. His first love though was rugby union and he was a more than adequate flyhalf before his older brother convinced him to stick to the tennis courts.

Turning professional in 1996, it took him three years to make it into the main tour playing in his first Grand Slam event at Roland Garros in 1999 when he reached the third round.

Branded as a clay-court specialist, Gaudio struggled to make much of an impact on faster surfaces and he soon came to realise that the French Open would be the one big tournament that he had a realistic chance of winning. In 2002 he played his best tennis, winning two ATP Tour titles, leading Argentina to the Davis Cup semi-finals with a 4-1 record and finishing the year ranked 21st in the world.

But the progress stopped there and Gaudio soon heard the hooves of the new Argentine stars thundering behind him.

Given to bouts of melancholy, he soon realised that if he was going to make an impact he would have to get his mind working the right way and he employed a sports psychologist to help him relax and enjoy playing his matches.

This year that decision has paid huge dividends with Gaudio reaching the final of the Barcelona ATP tournament at the start of May and now lifting The French Open as an unseeded player ranked 44th in the world.

He needed back-to-back, five-set wins in the opening two rounds here and was never mentioned as a possible winner until he outclassed Australia's Lleyton Hewitt in straight sets in the quarter-finals.

Nalbandian was next to fall, but for over an hour on Roland Garros on Sunday it looked like Gaudio would fall just short of realising his dream as Coria raced into a 6-0, 6-3 lead.

But with Coria increasingly suffering from pains in his left leg, Gaudio seized his chance to enter the Grand Slam record books.

Credits: Australian Tennis Magazine Online