Courier Exits Early

It was a shot Jim Courier normally could make with his eyes closed: a high-bouncing sitter near the net, just begging to be smashed into the open court for an easy winner.

But, on a day when virtually nothing went right for the former two-time French Open champion, Courier hacked the ball into the net. As the crowd gasped, he could only laugh and hold up his arms in mock apology.

The point summed up Courier’s misery as he slumped to a 6-1, 6-2, 4-6, 1-6, 6-4 defeat to Sweden’s Magnus Larsson. The first-round loss was the American’s earliest exit from his favorite tournament and confirmed the steady decline of a player once ranked No. 1.

Courier wasn’t the only big name knocked out.

No. 4 seed Goran Ivanisevic, never a clay-court master, lost 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 to Magnus Gustafsson in his latest Grand Slam failure.

There was nothing wrong with No. 2 seed Michael Chang, who cruised to a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 win over Rodolphe Gilbert.

On the women’s side, favorites Martina Hingis and Steffi Graf won.

The top-seeded Hingis, playing her first match in seven weeks after injuring her knee falling off a horse, routed Henrieta Nagyova 6-0, 6-2.

Graf, the No. 2 seed playing her third event after a three-month layoff with a knee injury, downed Paola Suarez 6-1, 6-4 as she opened her bid for her second straight and sixth French Open title.

Graf joined Martina Navratilova as the only women’s tennis players to exceed $20 million in career earnings by winning her first-round match, increasing her career total to $20,005,402.