Coria still haunted by his drugs test row

Coria said: "I was devastated by the penalty, which I considered too harsh, especially as I proved I had done everything possible to abide by the rules.

"I have not and would never take a banned substance to improve performance."

There is an added poignancy to the semi-final with Henman because the British No1 is part of a special task force set up by the ATP, who control the men's tour, to try and discover what is causingelevated levels of nandrolone in player samples - the reason Rusedski had to face a tribunal this year.

Henman's group has looked at hundreds of possible causes and still there is no definite answer.

Henman, who beat Coria's friend Juan Ignacia Chela to reach the semi-finals in Paris, admitted: "If anyone thinks they can take drugs and get away with it in professional tennis, they need their head checked.

"I don't even take any supplements after what happened to Greg. It's really difficult with the supplement contamination business that Greg's just been through. I've taken supplements and at the time I don't think I appreciated the risk I was taking.

"I used to take a supplement which was actually a carbohydrate-based drink and I used to have energy bars but now I don't take anything because I think the risk is greater than the reward.

"You can't be sure what is in them. I'm on a drugs task force for the Tour to discuss this and basically they've done a lot of analysis on the supplement industry and they tested some 630 products throughout the world, a lot of them in the States. They're basically coming back with a 20 per cent contamination rate.

"At the moment supplements are a no-go area. Hopefully, it's something we can work through because the reality is when we play in hot climates for four or five hours, we need to be able to replace the lost minerals and salts with something."

Coria hit the headlines for the wrong reasons again 12 months ago at the French Open when he came close to being thrown out of his semi-final against Martin Verkerk after flinging his racket at the ball and narrowly missing a ballgirl.

She had to turn away to avoid being hit but if there had been contact, Coria would have been instantly defaulted from the tournament. Henman was defaulted from the doubles at Wimbledon in 1995 for hitting a ballgirl with a shot in anger.

Coria had thrown the racket trying to catch up with a Verkerk backhand volley on his way to a defeat that is still fresh in his memory. It is adding to his desperate desire to match the achievement of Guillermo Vilas - the man he was named after - who won the French title in 1977. Vilas won four Slam titles and there is no doubt that Coria and fellow Argentine top 10 star David Nalbandian can follow suit on clay.

Ninth seed Henman and Coria have played three times before with the British player having won once but their record on clay stands at 1-1. Coria, however, has lost only once on clay in 36 matches.

His 31-match winning streak on clay was ended by Roger Federer in the final of the Hamburg Masters Series event last month.

It's the reason that while Chela was generous in his praise of Henman, he quickly added: "I'm sure Coria is going to win."