Sampras Serves Up a Big Win : Tennis: He advances to semifinals by defeating Black in straight sets.

Pete Sampras charged into the U.S. Open semifinals Thursday, closing out game after game with aces that served as exclamation points.

Among his 22 aces through a whipping wind, seven flew past a dizzy Byron Black on the last point of Sampras’ service games, leaving the Zimbabwean with the memory of brute power that lingered in his mind when he stepped up to serve so much less emphatically.

Sampras punctuated the end of his 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 6-0 romp with a 128-m.p.h. ace that was just as fast as his first serve, showing he was no less tired at the end of the 1-hour, 45-minute semifinal tuneup as he was at the start.

The winner of the Open in 1990 and ‘93, Sampras had only a little trouble in the first set adjusting to Black’s mild-mannered game and two-fisted ground strokes. In his previous match, Sampras had beaten a much different player in serve-and-volley specialist Todd Martin.

Once Sampras got used to Black’s style and cut down on his errors, there was nothing to impede his progress one step closer to another Grand Slam title.

“After I won the first two, there was no reason to fool around at this point in the tournament and take things for granted,” Sampras said. “The last set was the best set I played all week. I really started to pick up my serve. My whole game kind of just came behind it.”

Sampras has played all manner of players so far, including clay-courter Jaime Yzaga, big Mark Philippoussis, Martin and now Black. It was an assortment of styles that should prepare him well for the final weekend, especially after dropping only one set along the way.

“If I am playing well, I am pretty tough to beat,” Sampras said. “My whole game just revolves around my serve. If I am serving well, that kind of lets the rest of my game be a lot more confident and I can hit my groundies a little cleaner.”

Black, a month shy of 26, sounded like someone who had just had his party spoiled. He had beaten No. 8 Michael Stich to get this far, and harbored dreams of another upset. But the story about how Sampras got knocked out of the Open by a kid who learned to play barefoot on a grass court in Zimbabwe will have to wait.

“I was pretty much overpowered out there,” Black said. “I haven’t played in that sort of swirling wind before, and I think Pete was used to that. And he serves a lot better than I do. I was really struggling every time on my serve.

“You know, in the other matches I felt really confident and I was building confidence as I went along. Today, he really blew me off the court. I really didn’t have a weapon that could hurt him. So it is kind of a downer.”

Black, ranked No. 70, joined a long list of Sampras’ victims in the Open over the years. This hard surface, which allows Sampras to serve and volley or play from the baseline if he has to, is almost as perfectly suited to his game as Wimbledon’s grass.

Whatever Sampras did, Black couldn’t stop him.

“Nothing seems to faze him too much,” Black said. “You can break his serve and he still comes back firing.”