It’s a Long, Slow Trip, but Bruguera Arrives : French Open: Spaniard stops Courier’s run at Roland Garros with five-set victory in final.

Tennis crowned a new king of clay Sunday in the gray stone fortress-like stadium of Roland Garros, where Sergi Bruguera marched off with the French Open title.

Bruguera, unheralded, unappreciated and largely unsuccessful except on courts of slow red clay, completed an unexpected journey to his first Grand Slam singles title with a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory over defending champion Jim Courier.

Seeded No. 10, Bruguera worked his way through the 128-player men’s field with barely more than a flick of his wrist, scorching the court with powerful spinning forehands that sent him to the title.

It took 3 hours 59 minutes for Bruguera to end Courier’s bid for a third consecutive French Open championship, which is also about how long it took for Bruguera to bury an unwanted reputation.

Bruguera lost both his singles matches in Spain’s Davis Cup defeat to the Netherlands in Barcelona, including the deciding match when he lost to Mark Koevermanns after winning the first two sets.

But Bruguera proved his resiliency against Courier, who blew a 2-0 lead in the fifth set when he also was one point away from 3-1.

“You know, at 2-0 it was hard because he was serving so well, but I didn’t think it was over because I was prepared to fight the entire match,” Bruguera said. “And I did.”

Bruguera, 22, who started playing tennis at 6 and is coached by his father, Luis, rallied to break Courier twice in the final set. Serving for the match at 5-3, Bruguera faced two break points at 15-40, but pulled even when he cracked a service winner to Courier’s backhand followed by a forehand that Courier steered into the net.

A cross-court backhand pass produced one match point, which Courier saved with a forehand winner into the corner. As the crowd of 17,000 stood and cheered in anticipation of an upset, Bruguera produced a second match point with another service winner.

Bruguera made the most of this second chance. He struck one final looping topspin forehand down the line and lost his footing a little bit, then watched Courier knock a backhand volley past the baseline to end it.

Bruguera fell on his back on the clay court and lay motionless until Courier helped him to his feet and embraced him.

“It’s almost impossible to explain what I felt,” Bruguera said. “I was in heaven for a moment. I reach my dream since I was five years old, and then when you are fighting from this since, like, I don’t know, 15, 17 years, it is unbelievable you made it.

“It was the best feeling I ever had.”

For the second-seeded Courier, 22, the feeling was different. It was a memorable defeat, his first French Open loss since Andre Agassi defeated him in the fourth round in 1990.

Asked what he thought of Bruguera, Courier said: “Two words--French champion.”

Bruguera, the quintessential clay-court player, improved to 154-54 on clay. The French Open was his eighth title, all on clay.

His recipe for success against Courier was basic clay strategy, to knock balls back to the opponent and wait for him to miss. Courier obliged, although he did mix up his baseline attack with trips to the net, where he was only marginally successful.

Unbeaten in 12 matches on clay this year, Courier seemed strangely out of sync on his adopted favorite surface. His biggest weapons, his forehand and his serve, let him down.

Courier committed 67 unforced errors, 36 of them from the forehand side. Bruguera, who is not regarded as a stronger server than Courier, nevertheless hit seven aces to Courier’s five.

“I never felt I was really hitting my stride in this tournament,” Courier said. “I was never at my A game. I was at my B game quite a bit. Still, I made it to the final. I’m not disappointed.”

Courier certainly gave Bruguera a lot of chances. Bruguera had 26 break points, cashing in five of them.

Only 5-8 in five-set matches, Courier put himself in a hole when Bruguera captured the key third set, a 47-minute confrontation that began with a bang.

The key game in the entire match probably was the first game of the third set, an 18-minute struggle that lasted eight deuces and 22 points.

Courier, who had broken Bruguera to claim the second set and even the match, saved seven break points. Eight was enough for Bruguera. His short backhand cross-court passed Courier on the way to the net and Bruguera was rolling again.

He broke Courier again for 4-1, served out the set by mixing in an ace and hung tough when Courier fought back to take the fourth set.

When Courier broke Bruguera in the first game of the fifth set and held serve for 2-0, he seemed in control. But when Bruguera broke back to 2-2 and again for 4-2 when Courier snapped another forehand into the net on break point, he had lost the momentum for good.

“Basically, I just went out there and did what I could,” Courier said. “He played better than I did at the big times. He deserves it.”

French Open Notes

Jim Courier failed to become the first player to win three French Open titles since Bjorn Borg won four in a row. . . . Courier will remain No. 2 behind Pete Sampras when the new computer rankings are released today. Sergi Bruguera will probably be No. 5. He is the first Spaniard to win a Grand Slam singles title since Manuel Orantes defeated Jimmy Connors in the 1975 U.S. Open final. Bruguera refused to compare himself with countrymen Orantes, Manuel Santana and Andres Gimeno. “(They) are a myth in Spain and they did a lot more than I did, but I am very pleased with myself,” Bruguera said. . . . Bruguera won about $551,000, Courier about $275,000. . . . Gigi Fernandez and Natalia Zvereva won the women’s doubles title over Larissa Neiland and Jana Novotna, 6-3, 7-5. . . . Martina Hingis, 12, of Switzerland, won the girls’ junior singles title over Laurence Courtois of Belgium.