Courier, Martin Win; Sampras Next at Seniors Boston

Posted on May 3, 2007

Americans Jim Courier and Todd Martin recorded opening-round wins Wednesday at the Outback Champions Series stop in Boston, where Pete Sampras is scheduled to make his senior tour debut on Thursday.

Martin had little trouble defeating Pat Cash 6-1, 7-5 after coming off an ankle injury that saw him miss the Naples event in March. Courier, himself coming around from a back injury, tamed South African Wayne Ferreira 10-6 in a third-set match tiebreak to start 1-0 in round robin play.

"I felt good, and I think I probably shed some fear," Courier said of his back problems. "Obviously I had trepidation walking out there -- you just don't know if you're going to get a twinge again. I'm certainly not out of the woods yet, but I took a nice step in the right direction tonight...In the breaker I felt like I kind of stepped on the pedal. The advantages of having a super tiebreak is you see the finish line."

Martin won 10 straight games to take the first set and go up 4-0 in the
second.

"Today I was very focused from the get-go," Martin said. "(Pat) didn't serve well so I got a lot of good looks at his second serve in the first set. When he started making first serves, the ball sort of seemed bigger and bigger and bigger."

The Champions Cup features an eight-man round-robin format with the winner of each four-player division meeting in the title match on Sunday.

On Thursday the 14-time Grand Slam champion Sampras will make his Outback will take on 1998 Australian Open winner Petr Korda in his first tournament appearance since winning the 2002 US Open.

Also on the Thursday schedule is a battle of former No. 1s in John McEnroe vs. Mats Wilander.