TENNIS L.A. OPEN : Sampras Pierces Opponent’s Poor Serves

Brad Pearce may have reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, where he lost to top-seeded Ivan Lendl, but that didn’t make him any more formidable in the eyes of Pete Sampras, a first-round loser at the All-England Club.

After beating Pearce, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, in a second-round match at the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament Wednesday at UCLA, the third-seeded Sampras admitted that the match was “a little tougher than I thought it would be.”

Why so confident?

“Because he doesn’t have a serve that’s going to overpower me,” Sampras said of Pearce, a former UCLA All-American from Provo, Utah. “It’s kind of a serve he kind of just gets in, and then (he) gets to the net.

“It’s not like (Boris) Becker’s serve, where he’s going to ace me two or three times a game. It’s kind of a serve that, it was only a matter of time before I connected on some returns, and that’s what happened.”

After Pearce broke him twice in the last three games of the second set, then held serve in the opening game of the third, Sampras held serve without losing a point in the second game, then broke Pearce in the third, aided by a double fault by Pearce at 15-30.

Sampras served out the set to advance to the quarterfinals.

“I knew it was just a matter of time before I was going to break him again,” Sampras said.

Told of his opponent’s comments, Pearce said: “I’m sure he did feel that way because I wasn’t really serving that consistently. You might have seen the percentages.”

They showed that Pearce put his first serve into play 52% of the time and lost on 54% of his second serves.

“I know when I’m playing somebody who’s serving like I was today, I’d feel the same way he did,” Pearce said of Sampras.

Only a concentration lapse kept him from an easier win, Sampras said. “I got a little frustrated with some line calls.”

It’s the mental part of his game, Sampras said, that needs fine-tuning as he prepares for the Aug. 27 start of the U.S. Open.

After overpowering Pearce in the first set, twice answering with aces at break point in the eighth game, Sampras seemed to lose interest in the second, losing the sixth game of the second set at love.

“It was pretty evident out there today,” said Sampras, two weeks shy of his 19th birthday. “I played a good first set, then lost my concentration. And before I knew it, I’d lost the second set.”

What can he do to correct it?

“You can’t practice it,” he said. “You’ve just got to stay focused the whole match and it’s very tough to do. (Jimmy) Connors was probably the best ever at that. But look at the top guys--Becker and (Stefan) Edberg. They still have a tendency to lose their concentration.

“But I’m doing it much more than they are.”

Tennis Notes

Fourth-seeded Michael Chang beat Andrew Sznajder of Canada, 6-2, 6-3, and will rest today. After winning three three-set matches in as many days last weekend to win the Canadian Open, Chang played an exhibition against Andre Agassi Monday night in Lake Tahoe, then played at UCLA Tuesday and Wednesday. What does he plan to do today? “Just kind of veg out,” he said. Actually, he said he’ll probably practice for about an hour. . . . Dan Goldie, a former NCAA singles champion from Stanford, upset sixth-seeded Jean Fleurian of Paris, 6-7 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, overcoming a 5-1 deficit in the second-set tiebreaker. Goldie will play Chang Friday in the quarterfinals.