As the No.1 player in the Stanford Financial Champions Tour Rankings, Jim Courier was expected to beat Henri Leconte. He was perhaps not expected to struggle as much, or to inform journalists that Pete Sampras had been in touch to ask about life on the Delta Tour of Champions.

Courier defeated Leconte 6-4, 7-5, but despite a fast start when he broke the Frenchman immediately, he didn?t have things all his own way.

He also fell heavily on one approach to the net, but emerged relatively unscathed.

"That was an ugly spill - no more serve and volleying for me," he said, afterwards.

"When I serve and volley, bad things happen."

The American was delighted to see the hordes of people populating the seats at the Royal Albert Hall in the first session of The Masters Tennis presented by Cunard.

"I've played a lot of Tuesday afternoon matches where there were one tenth of the people that were in the stands today so that was very pleasant to see," he said.

As for Sampras, the seven-time Wimbledon champion had apparently been on the phone to Courier to express his curiosity.

"I spoke to Pete this week. He was curious to see how I'm enjoying doing this. I sense a little bit of restlessness there. Pete has been playing a lot of golf, but he was curious to know what this tour is all about," Courier said.

"It's been two years since Pete played and I think that's about the time when people start to feel how much they love the game of tennis and creep back into it with a few exhibitions here and there, and test the water. What you soon realise is that tennis is a core part of your being. It would certainly be a boon for the tour if Pete came out of retirement."

Courier will meet Pat Cash in his second round-robin match on Thursday.