TENNIS ROUNDUP : Sampras: 1 Win, 1,268 Diamonds

Pete Sampras defeated Frenchman Cedric Pioline, 7-6 (7-5), 1-6, 7-5, Sunday to win the tournament at Lyon, France, for the third consecutive year.

Sampras took $82,000 in official prize money to push his year earnings to more than $2 million. He also took home a trophy by a Lyon jewelry company with 1,268 diamonds valued at more than $500,000.

“I’m glad because the points are important, but I was a little nervous because I was thinking too much about the trophy,” Sampras said.

Pioline has yet to win in six tournament finals, including losses to Sampras at the U.S. Open and at Lyon twice. It was the third consecutive week Pioline advanced to a final and lost.

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At Hong Kong, Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands broke service five times and upset top-seeded Stefan Edberg of Sweden, 6-1, 6-4, for the championship of the $690,000 Marlboro Championships. Krajicek, seeded second and ranked 11th in the world, used his booming serve and solid ground strokes to overwhelm the sixth-ranked Edberg, who described his own performance as “horrific.”

At Beijing, Michael Chang defeated Greg Rusedski of Canada, 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, to win the Salem Open, China’s first ATP tournament. “Knowing the crowd is Chinese and that they’re behind me is very inspiring for me,” said Chang, who lost only two service points in the third set. “It makes me want to work harder, to constantly keep on improving.”

At Vienna, Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, relying on his huge serve, wore down top-seeded Austrian Thomas Muster and won the $335,000 Austrian Open, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3). Muster, ranked ninth in the world, had 18 aces, but Ivanisevic added 24 for a total of 71 in the tournament. “It is very frustrating if you face him and you cannot crack those serves,” Muster said. Said Ivanisevic: “I didn’t think it would be that tough.”

At Brighton, England, Wimbledon runner-up Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic defeated Anke Huber of Germany, 6-2, 6-4, and won the $375,000 indoor event. Novotna had seven double faults and squandered three match points, serving at 5-4, but she won the title when Huber drove a forehand wide.

At Budapest, Hungary, top-seeded Zina Garrison-Jackson overcame a shaky start for a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Sabine Appelmans of Belgium in the final of a $150,000 indoor tournament.