Friday, July 28, 2000 | 10:30 a.m.
LOS ANGELES -- At times, former Stanford player Paul Goldstein looked like a canary with one of its wings clipped off, hobbling around the court hoping for a miracle recovery.
But it was his opponent who came up lame.
Goldstein, hampered by tendinitis in his left foot and wearing one of his new pale yellow shirts, played a nearly flawless match to beat Alex O'Brien, 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of the Mercedes-Benz Cup Thursday afternoon. Goldstein will play unseeded Justin Gimelstob, who pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament with a 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3) win over top-seeded Mark Philippoussis.
Goldstein was scheduled to play Gimelstob this afternoon in the quarterfinals.
"I really put pressure on him with my return," said Goldstein, playing his first time in Los Angeles. "I returned really well."
Goldstein, a member of four Stanford NCAA championship teams, had tendinitis since last Friday and said he felt fine until he was up 3-1 in the first set. The anti-inflammatory medication he had taken had not set in, so when he could no longer stand the pain, he asked the chair umpire to call for a trainer at the next changeover while he was leading 5-2.
O'Brien broke Goldstein's serve, then held to get it back to 5-4 when an injury timeout was called. ATP Tour trainer Doug Spreen taped Goldstein's left foot before he served for the set.
With a freshly bandaged foot, Goldstein easily won his serve, then rallied to win the first game of the second set.
"It was very important to hold then," Goldstein said of the 10th game. "I was up 5-1 and playing great.
"He got back in it and at that point the match can get squirrelly on you. I played a couple of good points to get up 40-0 and if it gets back to deuce it can be a dogfight.
"It was a difficult match for me to play because Alex has been an incredible friend and mentor to me for the last two years since I've graduated," Goldstein added. "We have a connection having both gone to Stanford and we work with the same coach, but he has really gone above and beyond the call of duty helping me get adjusted to life on the tour."
And Goldstein will be hobbling, if not flying, into today's match, yellow shirt and all.
"I mean, the yellow seems to be working," he said. "I was thinking a little gold for Goldstein."
* DOLLARS AND CENTS: Third-seeded Marcelo Rios was fined an additional $5,000 by ATP Tour supervisor Gayle Bradshaw for being defaulted during his first-round match against Japan's Goichi Motomura Wednesday night. Rios was ousted from the tournament for verbally abusing chair umpire Tony Nimmons during a dispute while trailing Motomura 5-3. Rios had to forfeit $3,500 in first-round prize money and was forced to pay for his hotel room at the Sunset Marquis
* SENIORS DAY: Six former ATP Tour professionals played two doubles matches Thursday afternoon in an exhibition in conjunction with the Mercedes-Benz Cup. In the first match, Las Vegan David Pate and Vijay Armitraj lost to Scott Davis and Hank Pfister, 6-3, 7-5. Later Pfister and Pugh beat Davis and Eliot Teltscher, 6-7, 6-3, 10-6 (senior tiebreaker).
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