With Mission Accomplished, U.S. Splits

Say this for Jim Courier. He had already done more than his part.

Courier was the Iron Horse of the U.S. Davis Cup quarterfinal victory against Belgium--right up until the moment he shook the chair umpire’s hand and quit.

Courier, who won the first set, 6-3, over Christophe Van Garsse in the meaningless final match Sunday at the Indianapolis Tennis Center, retired in the second while trailing, 4-1, citing a sore right arm. It gave Belgium its only point in a 4-1 loss to the Americans. The United States will play Italy in the semifinals Sept. 25-27 at an American site to be determined.

Though it seemed Courier might only be suffering from 90-degree-itis and disinterest in playing a third set in a meaningless match on a sweltering day, he sounded sincere about his concern for his arm after playing 106 games in three days. “I just have a tired arm from a lot of tennis this weekend. I woke up this morning, and my arm was a little bit tight and sore, like a pitcher who has thrown too many pitches,” said Courier, who played a four-set match Friday and filled in for injured Richey Reneberg in a five-set match Saturday.

“In the warmup today, I could feel a little weakness in there,” Courier said. “I wasn’t getting much pop on my serve out there. I was trying to hit it hard, but I couldn’t break 120 [mph] out there. Normally, I’m hitting 124, 125.

“There’s no reason to make a small problem into a big one in a [meaningless match].”

The United States clinched the best-of-five quarterfinal Saturday when Courier and Todd Martin won the doubles.

In the other match Sunday, promising Belgian teenager Xavier Malisse--ranked No. 426 in the world--pressed No. 30 Martin enough to force a first-set tiebreaker before losing 7-6 (7-1), 6-3. Martin filled in for Andre Agassi, who went on to his next tournament site at Washington, D.C.

Before Sunday’s matches, a ceremony was held remembering Todd Witsken, the former USC All-American and professional player who died of brain cancer in May at 34. The USTA and Davis Cup team members designated a $115,000 donation to a fund for Witsken’s four children. Witsken became director of the Indianapolis Tennis Center after his retirement in 1993.

Davis Cup Notes

Davis Cup quarterfinal results set up semifinal matchups of U.S.-Italy and Sweden-Spain. Sweden and Spain each clinched their 4-1 victories in the first of two singles matches Sunday.

At Hamburg, Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman defeated host Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, in the decisive match. Kiefer twice failed to break Bjorkman at 4-4 in the final set, then was broken on his next serve to end a match in which 10,200 fans jeered every call against Germany.

At La Coruna, Spain, the host country’s Carlos Moya beat Switzerland’s Marc Rosset, 7-5, 6-1, 7-5, to secure Spain’s victory. . . . At Prato, Italy, the host country completed a 5-0 sweep of Zimbabwe with singles victories by Davide Sanguinetti and Diego Nargiso.

Associated Press contributed to this story.