Gambill Plays Part of Terminator Against Joyce

The Terminator provided motivation for Jan-Michael Gambill on Tuesday.

Early in the first set of his 6-1, 6-3 victory over Michael Joyce, Gambill noticed one of his idols sitting among the crowd.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“There’s a few people that would make me go like, ‘Wow,’ and he’s one of them,” said Gambill, who plays Paul Goldstein on Thursday. “Almost every guy in America looks up to him, you know. I was like, I better play like a man or he’s gonna be [mad].”

Fortunately for Gambill, a finalist in last year’s Mercedes-Benz Cup, he regained some of his old form in routing Joyce.

It has been a tough few months for Gambill, 24. Early in the year, he played well, advancing to at least the quarterfinals in seven of the first nine tournaments he entered. In early March, he won the Delray Beach event. A few weeks later, he lost to Andre Agassi in the finals of the Miami Ericsson Open.

Then the clay-court season began and Gambill’s early season success faded. In five tournaments, he won only two of nine matches and lost in the first round three times. At the French Open, Gambill lost to Kristian Pless, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 7-5, in the opening round.

“It was hell,” Gambill said of the clay-court season.

A change of scenery didn’t improve Gambill’s record. He went 3-2 in three grass-court tournaments, losing in the first round at Wimbledon.

With the hard-court season beginning, Gambill returns to his favorite surface. Gambill, seeded fifth, was never broken against Joyce and won in only 60 minutes.

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Joyce’s loss was another in a series of recent setbacks.

The Los Angeles native suffered a ruptured tendon in his left wrist at the end of 1998. Since then, he has played in only one ATP Tour event, losing in the first round at Memphis in February 1999.

Ranked 257th in the entry system, Joyce, 28, is 11-11 in Challenger events this year. Last week, he won three matches in qualifying for this week’s tournament.

Joyce returns to the Challenger circuit next week. Next month, he hopes to qualify for the U.S. Open.

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Paris. Halle. Nottingham.

Those are just some of the stops on the ATP Tour’s latest 3 1/2-month European odyssey.

Since late March, only three tournaments--in Atlanta, Houston and Newport, R.I.--have been played in the United States.

And all are considered minor events.

At least one player could do without the nomadic lifestyle.

“I wish every tournament were played in Knoxville,” said Chris Woodruff, a native of the Tennessee city. “That’s the tough part of this sport. I have a lot of things besides tennis that I like to do.”