Unexpected And Unspoiled

When Jim Courier won last year's French Open, one of tennis' four Grand Slams, it was pretty big news in Paris and in his hometown of Dade City, Fla. When Courier won last month's Australian Open, another of the coveted four, it was big news Down Under -- and in Dade City, Fla. Last week Courier was closing in on becoming the first American man to rank No. 1 since the 1985 dethroning of John McEnroe, who is still big news pretty much everywhere. Presumably, as Courier fought his way through a San Francisco tournament where he could pick up the needed handful of ranking points -- he started the week with 3,652 to leader Stefan Edberg's 3,671 -- word of his status was eagerly awaited in Dade City, Fla.

Although the top ranking means millions of dollars a year, plus celebrity status in places on this planet where a football or baseball is just a demonstration of geometric forms, the rest of the U.S. seemed largely unaware of Courier's climb, the fastest in the sport's modern history.

Americans are apt to get to like Courier. He plays with a baseball cap tugged over his barbered (not styled) reddish-blond locks. It is almost impossible to see his bony, big-eyed, broad-mouthed face without envisioning him atop a tractor. He is athletic but not graceful, a meat-and-potatoes player who got ahead by hard work. Says ex-champion turned TV commentator Fred Stolle: "Grit and determination, they're his trademarks." Adds Stolle's broadcast partner Cliff Drysdale: "Courier is a bulldog."

Yet he is also, by tennis standards, a yes-sir, no-ma'am gentleman. His youthful outbursts, occasionally obscene, usually amounted to a hard look at an unwelcome call or a pumped fist, Jimmy Connors style, when things went his way. Now, at 21, he has learned from coach Jose Higueras that champions don't waste even that much energy overreacting. When a string popped on Courier's racquet at a hideously inopportune moment in the Australian final -- on a break point against Edberg that could have settled the second set -- Courier gave a barely perceptible shrug and strolled over for a replacement. Crowds there admired his tenacity and saw him as a fighter, a McEnroe without the abuse.

He has been equally subdued about the quest for the top. He answered one recent query, "If I don't get there, No. 2 in the world is pretty good." To another he said, "It's nothing that anyone can do anything about. You just play your best each week and see what that wacky computer spits out." He is keenly aware that getting there does not ensure staying there. The complex formula makes it possible to win a tournament yet lose ground to a just defeated opponent. But Courier seems to have the sturdy frame, stubborn persistence and stoic temperament to hover somewhere near the top for years.