Earlier in the day, third-seeded Jim Courier beat wild-card qualifier Geoff Grant 6-1, 6-2, avoiding the first-round upsets that sidelined Vince Spadea and Wayne Black at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex outside Orlando. Chang, who is coming back from a partial cartilage tear in his left knee suffered less than two months ago, was pushed to the limit before taming the 21-year-old Delgado 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-1).

Delgado, Paraguay's No. 1 one player, matched Chang shot for shot for nearly two hours before abruptly disintegrating in the climactic tiebreaker.

With the score tied 6-6 in the third set and Chang labouring to fend off Delgado's power game, the Paraguayan opened the tiebreaker with five consecutive unforced errors to virtually hand the top-seed the victory in a match he never reallycontrolled.

Delgado, ranked 104th in the world, said his collapse was more a failure of tactics than nerve.

until the tiebreaker, Delgado had served and volleyed well, registering 12 aces, a surprisingly high figure on a slow surface against one of the game's fastest players.

The victory improved Chang's 1998 match record to 10-5. The former French Open champion has seen his ranking fall to 12th in the world after finishing last year at third.

Courier, playing his first match since a five-set victory over Russia's Marat Safin, clinched a memorable Davis Cup series earlier this month, needed only 59 minutes to advance. Spadea, seeded fourth, was upset by Australia's Andrew Ilie 6-4, 6-2 and Black, seeded sixth, was ousted by 20-year-old American Jan-Michael Gambill 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.

Seventh-seeded Grant Stafford of South Africa cruised past Belgium's Johan van Herck 6-3, 6-1.

Top-seeded Michael Chang played Ramon Delgado of Paraguay on last night.Courier was never threatened by Grant, racing to a 3-0lead in the first set and winning 10 of the first 11 games. Grant, 28, who had won the ATP Challenger Tournament in Mexico on Sunday, appeared listless and made Courier's task easier with numerous unforced errors.

``Geoff is coming from just having won on a different surface in a different country,'' Courier said, ``and I didn't think he would be quite as sharp coming in, and he wasn't. But my job out there is to be better than the other guy and today I was better than Geoff.''

Courier admitted that his toughest battle was overcoming the hangover from his exhausting and emotional Davis Cup performance.

Against Gambill, Zimbabwe's Black was serving for the first set at 5-4 when the American broke back to force a tiebreaker.

With the momentum in his favor, Gambill took the first ten points of the second set, breaking Black's serve twice and never looking back as he earned his first clay court victory as a professional.