Agassi Can’t Muscle His Way Past Courier

Two guys with white hats, black shorts and solid gold forehands, pounded tennis balls as if they were swinging hammers instead of rackets late into the night at the U.S. Open, where only the strongest survived.

That would be Jim Courier, which even Andre Agassi had to admit Wednesday night after losing a 3-hour 47-minute comparison of power equipment.

There were two important facts Agassi had to concede: Courier beat him. And Courier is stronger.

“That’s one thing I learned, that I’m pretty strong, but Jim is stronger,” said Agassi, who watched Courier blast 22 aces and score a 6-3, 6-7 (8-6), 6-1, 6-4 quarterfinal decision before 20,643 in Stadium Court.

“More power to him if he can serve like that. It makes me wish I could get that same level.”

With his fifth consecutive win over Agassi, Courier moved into a semifinal showdown with Pete Sampras, who witnessed a disappearing act by Alexander Volkov, and pulled off an increasingly easy 6-4, 6-1, 6-0 victory.

For Courier, it was a fairly impressive show of strength. He stroked 56 winners and made the most out of a massive number of opportunities--29 break-point chances, eight breaks of Agassi’s serve.

It ended easily enough, at three minutes after midnight EDT, as the last of the three aces scorched the middle of the court in the final service game.

“It’s always special when Andre and I play,” said Courier, who saved his best match of the tournament for his oldest rival.

Courier had no one to blame but himself for blowing the second-set tiebreaker. Actually, maybe Agassi had something to do with it, saving three set points and winning the last five five points after falling behind, 6-3.

The key error came with Courier holding a trio of set points, when he had an open court to aim at with Agassi out of position and wound up sending a volley wide past the opposite side line.

From there on, Agassi won the tiebreaker and looked as if he was rolling. He wasn’t. To open the third set, Courier broke Agassi on the sixth break point of the game and went on from there to finish the set in 39 minutes.

The Sampras match was hardly a fight to the finish. In it, Sampras answered the question of how you feel when the guy on the other side of the net quits trying.

The answer: Who cares?

Had Volkov tried any less, he would have failed to come out of the locker room. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. He played nonchalantly, served stiff-legged and put volleys into the net like he was flipping pancakes.

“He packed it in,” said Sampras, who tried not to lose his concentration while Volkov did everything but pack his racket bags during changeovers.

“It is pretty tough when you are playing some guy who is not competing that hard,” he said. “It was a little strange to me.”

Volkov blamed his poor play on being homesick, which is about as good an excuse as any.

But the way Sampras played was probably enough to make just about anybody sick, whether home or not. After struggling through back-to-back five-set matches and lucky to win both, Sampras was pretty overpowering, although it might be hard to judge the extent because of Volkov’s disappearing act.

Sampras made only 44% of his first serves, but won 80% of the points. He had seven aces, just two double faults, lost only 19 points while serving and won 31 points in 41 approaches to the net.

Volkov’s first Grand Slam quarterfinal lasted 1 hour 39 minutes. Meanwhile, Sampras won his 15th consecutive match (it’s 20 in a row, not counting the Olympics) and his second U.S. Open semifinal. The first was in 1990 when he defeated John McEnroe and went on to win the final in a three-set demolition of Agassi.

From here on out, there is no mistaking the importance of the situation.

“It is huge,” Sampras said. “This is my last chance of the year to try to win a Grand Slam. This is what I basically tried to gear my year to and I will give it my best shot. I’m going to try and get it.”

U.S. Open Notes

In 4 hours 3 minutes, Wimbledon doubles champions John McEnroe and Michael Stich defeated Sergio Casal and Emilio Sanchez, 6-7 (7-4), 6-3, 6-7 (10-8), 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. McEnroe and Stich meet Jim Grabb-Richey Reneberg in the semifinals, a rematch of the Wimbledon final. Kelly Jones and Rick Leach, who defeated the top-seeded team of Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, are already in the semifinals.

Safely inside his hotel room, Pete Sampras said he watched television as Ivan Lendl worked 5 hours 1 minute in his victory over Boris Becker. Sampras said he stayed to the end: “I had a hard time sleeping.” You might think that for Sampras or any other tennis player, the prospect of having to go up against Lendl, who would play five sets, five hours or until the other guy drops, would be sort of daunting. But not to Sampras. “I’ll stay out there for five hours too, until I drop,” Sampras said. “I played him here five sets two years ago and beat him. So I wouldn’t mind.” . . . For the record, Lendl is 13-13 against Stefan Edberg, his quarterfinal opponent. But Edberg has won four of the last five, each one on hard courts, including the 1991 U.S. Open, this year’s Australian Open and three weeks ago in New Haven, Conn. . . . Michael Chang won his only meeting against Wayne Ferreira last year at Indian Wells.