Americans Jim Courier, Pete Sampras and Michael Chang moved into the final 16 of the Italian Open Wednesday, trying to break a nine-year U.S. drought in the clay-court tournament at Rome.
The last U.S. winner at the Italian was Jimmy Arias in 1983.
Courier, No. 1 in the world, breezed past Francisco Clavet of Spain, 6-2, 6-2. Sampras, seeded No. 2, defeated Austria's Horst Skoff, 6-3, 6-4, and Chang, seeded No. 5, defeated Italy's Renzo Furlan, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
Ivan Lendl, seeded No. 9, was eliminated by Marc Rosset of Switzerland, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7-3).
Lendl, former No. 1-ranked player now struggling to get past the early rounds, claimed he lost his confidence after the chair umpire, Richard Ings of Australia, reversed a call during the tiebreaker. Lendl, who was leading at the time, 3-1, dropped the next six points to lose the match.
"I felt I didn't get a fair shake from the umpire today," Lendl said. "After the match, I asked him, "How can you live with yourself?"
