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Sampras breezes thru; Courier struggles

Top seed and defending champion Pete Sampras used his third round match as a practice session as he cakewalked past British part-timer Danny Sapsford 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 on Friday to take his appointed place in the pre-quarter-finals of the men's singles at Wimbledon.

However, his countryman Jim Courier had to fight all the way before joining him in the last 16.

Courier edged past Sjeng Schalken of The Netherlands in a marathon contest at 7-6(7-2), 3-6, 3-6, 7-5, 13-11.

Few in the packed house on Court One may have doubted Sampras's chances of advancing. To put it simply, it was match between the world number one against the world number 595. Still, they came to cheer both, the champion and Sapsford, who battled gamely although he knew what the outcome would be.

Sapsford, who retires after Wimbledon, never came close to breaking the Sampras service whereas the American, five times champion here, threatened each time the Briton stepped up to serve.

The partisan and patriotic crowd could do nothing to prevent Sampras getting the single break he needed in each set to wrap up victory in one hour 42 minutes.

Sampras now meets Daniel Nestor of Canada, who beat Paul Goldstein of the U.S. 6-3, 6-7(3-7), 6-0, 6-7(4-7), 6-4 in the last 16.

Seventh seed Mark Philippoussis also served and volleyed his way into the last 16.

The towering Australian, who reached the quarter-finals here and the U.S. Open final last year, scored a 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Francisco Clavet of Spain.

Tim Henman of Britain, seeded sixth, beat Sebastien Grosjean of France 6-1, 6-7(8-10), 6-3, 6-2 to also make the grade, as did 13th seed Karol Kucera (Slovakia), who beat Daniel Vacek (Czech Republic) 6-1, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(7-4).

Agencies