Hours Long, Rewarding for Sampras

PARIS — Pete Sampras’ day trip to Roland Garros on Tuesday started under the hot sun and ended four hours 18 minutes later, not long before nightfall.

He was ready for this sojourn, bringing along the necessary provisions--namely his serve, volley and an adequate amount of patience. This time, second-seeded Sampras had just enough weapons and luck to extend his stay in France, defeating Juan Antonio Marin of Costa Rica, 6-7 (7-5), 6-4, 7-5, 6-7 (11-9), 6-4, at the French Open.

“Welcome to Paris, I guess,” Sampras said, smiling.

For Sampras, playing here is like having to swallow the bitter medicine of the French Open before being allowed to move on to the fun stuff, his beloved Wimbledon.

He knows he will never feel truly at home here, despite fervent crowd support, but he went to work and did the dirty work. His socks and shirt were coated with clay after he went tumbling to the court, diving for a difficult volley on his first match point, in the fourth set.

It took him another set before he put Marin away after the 92nd-ranked player netted a backhand.

“How did I survive it? Grace of God, I guess,” said Sampras, who had 14 double faults and 74 unforced errors. “I just hung in there. Obviously, I wasn’t feeling great at the end of the third. And in the fourth and fifth I was kind of hanging on a bit.”

A tired-looking Sampras is a troublesome sign for his opponents. Just ask Alex Corretja about the 1996 U.S. Open. Marin should have known he was in trouble once Sampras had a towel draped over his head on changeovers and started bending his knees and moving slowly between points.

“He showed he was tired,” Marin said. “I think maybe he was tired. But not as much as it appeared, no?”

Marin, 24, did not look like a lightly regarded player. Although he is from Costa Rica, he might as well be a second cousin to the group of Spanish Armada players. He moved to Spain in 1989 and played in the Spanish national program until returning to his native country in 1998. He has not won a match in eight Grand Slams, including last year’s French Open. But Marin did beat then No. 2-ranked Marcelo Rios of Chile in Santiago last fall, stopping Rios from supplanting Sampras as No. 1.

“This guy moves as well as anyone I ever played,” Sampras said. “I mean, he was getting shots that were phenomenal, he hit great passing shots. He made me work very hard.”

Marin kept Sampras working for another set, 46 more minutes after he fought off two match points in the fourth-set tiebreaker.

The first match point came with Marin serving at 7-8 in the tiebreaker and he saved it with some superb retrieving, which sent Sampras tumbling on the clay as he netted the forehand volley.

“I hit a forehand up the line or cross court. Sampras said. “I thought that was it. He scraped it back and it kind of startled me. I got jammed on a forehand. He hit a good pass. I dove for it. That was a great get he made.

“When you’re out there and you are competing and you’ve got match point in your hands--I felt like I played a pretty good point--he came up with the goods.”

Said Marin: “I think Pete thought I was not going to get that ball. And the crowd also because they shouted like the match was over. To get that ball I ran to the other side because I knew I’d have to run to the other side. I was lucky because I hit an unbelievable backhand and he missed the volley. It was unbelievable.”