TENNIS ROUNDUP : Courier Downs Krajicek; Sampras Beats Edberg

A victory over Richard Krajicek on Wednesday brought Jim Courier closer to retaining the No. 1 ranking in the world.

Courier prevailed, 6-7 (7-4), 7-6 (7-1), 7-5, to win his opening match at the ATP World Championships at Frankfurt, Germany.

Pete Sampras defeated No. 2-ranked Stefan Edberg, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, to keep alive his chances of retaining the title. But Courier’s victory prevented the No. 3 Sampras from having any chance of getting to No. 1, even if he wins the year-end tournament of the world’s top eight players.

Edberg, who is 1-1 in the round-robin portion of the event, could still get enough computer points to climb from No. 2 to No. 1 for the third time this year, depending how Courier does.

Sampras, who lost to Edberg in the final of the U.S. Open this year, said: “At the U.S. Open I also took the first set, 6-3, but then I let it slip away. I had a flashback and I thought about the U.S. Open, I felt it was slipping away again. But I put a couple of good shots together when it mattered.”

Boris Becker (1-1), seeking to win the title for the first time since the tournament moved to his homeland in 1990, defeated Petr Korda of Czechoslovakia, 6-4, 6-2.

Courier, who lost to Krajicek four days ago in Antwerp, Belgium, was unhappy with the match. There were few rallies between the powerful hitters, and both made many errors. In the third game of the second set, Courier moaned, “Boring tennis.”

Krajicek did not agree. Afterward, he said: “If he thinks it’s boring, maybe he should go off the court, take a shower. That’s his opinion. I was having fun, trying to win a tennis match.”

In what is rapidly becoming the latest fad at the Virginia Slims Championships, Jennifer Capriati and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario turned first-set tiebreakers into straight-set victories in New York.

Capriati, seeded seventh in the 16-player tournament, defeated Helena Sukova, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1, after Sanchez Vicario rallied past Zina Garrison, 7-6 (7-0) 6-1.

Capriati, 16, had leads of 3-0 and 4-1 before Sukova, playing her best tennis of 1992, pulled even, 4-4. The two battled into the tiebreaker, which Capriati dominated to move into the quarterfinals for the second time in three tries at this season-ending tournament. “My first volleys weren’t good enough, so she had like three chances every time to pass me,” Sukova said.

It also took Sanchez Vicario, seeded fifth, time to find a groove. Garrison led, 5-2, in the first set before giving way. Sanchez Vicario will face fourth-seeded Martina Navratilova in the quarterfinals.

In an evening match, Gabriela Sabatini defeated Amy Frazier, 6-0, 6-2.