TENNIS ROUNDUP : Courier Beats Mansdorf; Chang Upset by Martin

Jim Courier broke Amos Mansdorf only once Saturday, but his timing was perfect as he pulled out a 7-6 (7-3), 2-6, 6-4 semifinal victory in the Kroger-St. Jude International at Memphis, Tenn.

“I can only think of two break points I didn’t play smart on,” said Courier, the No. 1 player in the Assn. of Tennis Professionals rankings. “The only one I got was match point. That’s the one that mattered, but it would’ve been a lot nicer to get three or four of those.”

Courier, the tournament’s top-seeded player, held serve to go up 5-4 in the third set and went up 40-15 when Mansdorf put a shot into the net. After his next serve, Mansdorf again hit into the net to give Courier the match.

Mansdorf, ranked 26th, tied the final set at 4-4, but then faltered.

“I’m terribly disappointed because I felt I played good enough to win,” Mansdorf said.

Unseeded Todd Martin beat No. 2-seeded and seventh-ranked Michael Chang, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4, to advance to the final against Courier.

Martin beat eighth-ranked Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Second-seeded Boris Becker served 15 aces and beat Australian Wally Masur, 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), in the semifinals of the Milan Indoor tournament at Milan, Italy.

Sergi Bruguera of Spain rallied from a second-set rout to upset third-seeded Czech Petr Korda, 6-4, 0-6, 7-5, in the first semifinal.

Becker, ranked fourth in the world, took 1 hour 32 minutes to defeat the unseeded Masur to make the final in the Milan Indoors for the third time since 1987.

Monica Seles lived up to her No. 1 ranking with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Mary Joe Fernandez in the semifinals of the Chicago Slims tennis tournament.

Seles will face Martina Navratilova today for the $75,000 first prize in the $350,000 tournament. Navratilova defeated Katerina Maleeva of Bulgaria, 6-0, 4-6, 6-1, in the other semifinal.