An Uncomplicated Sampras Gets Through First-Rounder

Pete Sampras was relaxed and happy, Andrei Medvedev tense and testy. So guess who breezed to a 6-4, 6-3 victory in the first round of the Tennis Masters Series on a warm desert night here Tuesday.

Sampras, seeded second and now the man to beat with the early exit Monday of top-seeded Andre Agassi, won this event in 1994 and 1995 but has struggled since then. He is 2-4 since his last title here and was taken out the last three years by a trio that would not exactly be a Murderers’ Row of tennis--Bohdan Ulihrach, Thomas Muster in his twilight years and Felix Mantilla.

He said he has been bothered by the way the ball flies around in the dry desert heat. He said he has tried changing rackets, changing tension on his racket strings. Nothing seemed to work. One reporter even speculated that he was simply in a hurry to get to the golf course. Sampras laughed.

“I’m not trying to complicate it here,” he said. “I’m just trying to go out and play, come in a lot [to the net] and hopefully, I can win a few matches.”

He was especially accurate in his summation of what he did against Medvedev, the Ukrainian who has beaten Sampras twice in seven matches--both times on clay--and who is a former top-10 player and the French Open finalist who lost to Agassi last year.

“I did what I had to do to escape,” Sampras said.

The two held serve until Medvedev toed the line at 4-5 of the first set and got it to deuce with a 109 mph ace. Then Medvedev, a baseliner, cracked a 128-mph first serve and approached. This, of course, is Sampras’ stuff, and he slapped a low, hard return that Medvedev, looking like a duck out of water, volleyed into the net.

On set point, Sampras returned deep, and Medvedev, staying back, floated a forehand long, then said something nasty in range of the umpire’s ears. He was given a code violation, which meant that a few more similar utterances could get him defaulted.

Medvedev fought off two break points in the sixth game of the second set, then succumbed to Sampras for a break in the eighth game, from where Sampras served it out.

The match was Sampras’ first on the new Indian Wells Garden Stadium, a complex that was dreamed into reality by the longtime visionary and event director here, Charlie Pasarell.

The crowd Tuesday night in the 16,100-seat facility was 9,968, marking the first time in seven sessions of this combined men’s and women’s event that the tournament didn’t draw five figures. The best crowd so far was Tuesday’s day session at 14,220. Through the first seven sessions, attendance here is up 22,661 from last year.

Sampras said that he liked the stadium in general, liked the speed of the court, and while it felt a bit big, he said, “It’s a beautiful stadium. I think they did a great job of putting it together.”

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Patrick Rafter of Australia, the two-time U.S. Open champion who has been struggling back into form after surgery in October on his serving shoulder, got through his first round against Marcus Ondruska of South Africa, 6-3, 7-6 (7). “I’m pretty happy with it, overall,” said Rafter, seeded 13th. . . . Other seeded players advancing were No. 5 Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, No. 6 Magnus Norman of Sweden, No. 7 Marcelo Rios of Chile, No. 11 Tim Henman of Britain and No. 16 Lleyton Hewitt of Australia. Hewitt beat Carlos Moya of Spain, who has slipped badly since last year here, when he won a semifinal match that made him the No. 1 player in the world at that point. The only casualty among seeded players was No. 4 Nicolas Kiefer of Germany, who lost to Fabrice Santoro of France, 6-1, 6-4.

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Today’s Featured Matches

STADIUM COURT, STARTING 10 A.M.

* Serena Williams vs. Mary Pierce, France.

* Martina Hingis, Switzerland vs. Monica Seles*

* Pete Sampras vs. Wayne Ferreira, South Africa

* Gustavo Kuerten, Brazil vs. Tommy Haas, Germany.

NIGHT SESSION, 6:30 P.M.

* Alex Corretja, Spain vs. Patrick Rafter, Australia.

* Match will not start before noon