TENNIS ROUNDUP : Sampras, Courier Roll Into Final

Pete Sampras, playing what he said were the two best sets of his career, beat Ivan Lendl, and Jim Courier defeated defending champion Andre Agassi Saturday to reach the final of the ATP World Championship at Frankfurt, Germany.

It will be the first all-American final since 1979, when John McEnroe defeated Arthur Ashe.

Sampras used a powerful serve-and-volley game to beat Lendl, 6-2, 6-3. Courier, coming off a big season that has seen him jump to No. 2 in the world rankings, defeated Agassi, 6-3, 7-5.

Courier is 4-4 against Agassi but has won the last three matches, including the final of the French Open this year.

He reached the final in his first appearance in this event.

“I went for the big shots at the right moment and they went in,” Courier said.

Agassi said Courier did not play great tennis. “But he played really well at the right time,” he said.

Sampras beat Lendl in only 68 minutes.

Lendl, making his 12th appearance in the season-ending event he has won five times, was the only unbeaten player in group play to reach the semifinals. He had not lost a set. But he could not cope with Sampras’ powerful game.

“These were probably the two best sets I’ve ever played,” said Sampras, the 1990 U.S. Open champion. “I was serving well, I was returning unbelievably. When you are that confident, you just go for it.”

Monica Seles reached her 16th consecutive final this year with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in the Virginia Slims of Philadelphia.

The top-seeded Seles, who needed only 65 minutes to beat the third-seeded Sanchez Vicario, has won eight tournaments in 1991 en route to the world’s No. 1 ranking.

Seles, who turns 18 on Dec. 2, will play fourth-seeded Jennifer Capriati, who defeated second-seeded Gabriela Sabatini, 6-3, 6-4, in the other semifinal.

“It’s amazing,” Seles said. “Last year, my goal was to get to the semifinals or final of every tournament and I’ve kept that with me this year. I’ve been a little lucky.”

Top-seeded Katerina Maleeva of Bulgaria defeated unseeded Audra Keller, 7-6 (7-1), 6-2, to win a $150,000 tournament at Indianapolis.

Keller, of Memphis, Tenn., had set points at 6-5 in the first set, but Maleeva, ranked 11th in the world, won the next three points to take a lead she never relinquished.