TENNIS / AUSTRALIAN OPEN : Patience Pays Off for Courier

MELBOURNE, Australia — The first game took 10 minutes. The first set lasted 58 minutes. By the time Jim Courier won the tedious match, fans were huddled under blankets on a summer’s night at the Australian Open.

The third-seeded Courier defeated Nicklas Kulti, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1), Friday in a match that lasted 2 hours 41 minutes but seemed longer.

“We were just grinding, grinding, grinding all the time until someone hit a good shot and forced a mistake,” Courier said.

The match was delayed at the start when Courier forgot his white baseball cap in the locker room. It had a four-minute rain interruption in the final set. But, mostly, it had long rallies that anesthetized the shivering fans.

The seventh game of the match lasted 21 minutes and 28 points. It included 11 deuces. Courier, who was serving, finally won it to go ahead, 5-2.

The temperature, which had reached 72 degrees during the afternoon, dipped to 54 at night. Fans snuggled under blankets and Swedish flags brought to cheer on Kulti.

Top-seeded Pete Sampras joined Courier in the fourth round with a 7-5, 6-1, 1-6, 6-1 victory over Stephane Simian of France. His next opponent will be 15th-seeded Ivan Lendl, who defeated Paul Haarhuis 4-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.

Steffi Graf, the top-seeded woman, defeated German compatriot Barbara Rittner, 6-2, 6-4, to reach the fourth round. Also advancing were No. 3 Conchita Martinez, No. 6 Mary Joe Fernandez, No. 10 Kimiko Date, No. 14 Magdalena Maleeva and No. 16 Lindsay Davenport, as well as unseeded Chanda Rubin.

Rubin, a 17-year-old from Lafayette, La., ignored swirling winds to defeat Kristine Radford, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1), in a match interrupted twice by rain. Davenport, also 17, from Palos Verdes, won by 6-1, 6-2 over Elena Makarova.