Jim Courier looked back on his fondest memories from the French Open and shared a hilarious story.
The 54-year-old won four Grand Slam titles throughout his career and two of them came at the clay-court Grand Slam.
With as much success as he had in singles in the French capital, the former World number one entered the men’s doubles at Roland Garros early in his career.
Jim Courier’s partner was none other than his fellow American and icon of the game, Pete Sampras.
Jim Courier recalls story with Pete Sampras at the 1989 French Open
In 1989 Courier was in just his second year on the ATP Tour, as was Sampras.
The pair entered that year’s French Open and joined forces to try and go for glory in the men’s doubles competition.
The American pair were teenagers at the time and ahead of their first match of the tournament, they did something that almost got them defaulted from the event without even hitting a ball.
“Here is a great story for you. This is before I was a champion here, this is early in my career, either my first or second time playing Roland Garros,” Courier told the Roland Garros YouTube channel.
“Pete Sampras and I were playing doubles that season together. We were teenagers and playing doubles and it was a rainy day in Paris. No covered courts and we were scheduled last.
“We must have been out of the singles but for whatever reason we decided to go to the movies in the day, because we were just trying to kill time and didn’t think we were going to play. We come out of the movie and call the tournament to check in.
“It’s not raining when we come out of the movies and they tell us they have moved our court and we are on court in 30 minutes. So we scrambled to get over here, no warm up.
“We were literally running from the locker room to get to the court, we were on the clock where you can get defaulted if you are not on the court in 15 minutes and we were just frantic to get the court.
“Somehow we made it to the court andI really should look up the story and know whether I won the match or not, but I remember how frustrated and flustered we were.”
“This was probably 1989, something like that. It was a different time and we were very unprofessional. We should have been at the courts waiting like everyone else but we were like let’s go see a movie!”
How did Jim Courier and Pete Sampras do in doubles at the 1989 French Open?
Despite the frantic buildup to their match, Courier and Sampras won their first round match at the 1989 French Open.
They defeated the pair of Horacio de la Peña and Horst Skoff 6-3, 6-4, and went on to face the German pair of Christian Saceanu and the 1991 Wimbledon singles champion Michael Stich.
They were beaten 3-6, 4-6, the tournament was eventually won by their compatriots Patrick McEnroe and Jim Grabb.
Courier and Sampras played doubles together throughout the 1989 season and defeated Josef Cihak and Cyril Suk to win the Italian Open in the build up to Roland Garros.
The pair played one another twice in the singles competition at the French Open, with Courier winning in 1994, and Sampras claiming a five-set thriller in 1996.
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