World No. 1 Pete Sampras, wielding an aggressive forehand to go with his big serve, beat fellow American Richey Reneberg 6-4, 7-5 in the Japan Open final Sunday to win his second tournament in a row.
In the women's singles final, top seed Kimiko Date forced errors with her sharpshooting and speedy retrieving to beat American Amy Frazier 7-5, 6-4 for her fourth title in five years.Sampras regained the top ranking from Austrian Thomas Muster by winning a week earlier at Hong Kong. He protected it with his latest triumph, his fourth in eight tournaments this year.
He has a 1996 record of 29-3 in singles matches, but now faces his biggest challenge - trying to win the French Open for the first time next month.
Sampras started out with service winners of 128 and 121 mph, getting his first-set break in the seventh game with a backhand crosscourt passing shot and a double fault by Reneberg.
He broke again in the second set's first game with an overhead winner and then a passing shot wide by Reneberg.
"I really served well," said Sampras, who collected $154,000. "It was windy and hard to get a rhythm, but I think I handled it pretty well.
"I wanted to hit some serves that were significant and scare him a little bit."
He won 74 percent of his service points, banging in eight aces.
"I need to crank it up, even if I miss it, and let them know this bad boy is coming," said Sampras, who also used his forehand to set up winners. "I was hitting it pretty well today."
It was the third consecutive Japan Open final in which Date and Frazier had met. Frazier won last year after the Japanese player had beaten her in 1994 for her third straight title.
Date, ranked ninth in the world, collected $29,000.
Frazier said her meetings with Date "were always good matches. I think maybe this year she didn't miss as many balls as last year and she hit the ball real deep."
Date said that this time, "I tried to be more patient, to make her run more and hit the ball so that she wouldn't hit many backhand shots."
In the men's doubles final, the world's top pair, Australians Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, beat Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and American Rick Leach 6-2, 6-2.
At Barcelona, Spain, No. 1 seed Thomas Muster of Austria rolled over Marcelo Rios of Chile Sunday to win the $925,000 Barcelona Open tennis tournament.
In a battle of left-handers, Muster needed just 2 hours, 19 minutes to defeat the sixth-seed Rios 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to win the first prize of $132,000.
The victory gave Muster, ranked No. 2 in the world behind Pete Sampras, his 29th consecutive clay court victory and 38th career title.
"The key was winning the first set," Muster said. "He's a very dangerous player, he fought hard and his shots opened up many angles."