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Monday, Jul. 6, 1998
Sampras plays it straight
By JIM LITKE
Associated PressWIMBLEDON, England - He is everything that's right about tennis. Wrong about it, too.
Pete Sampras behaves. Maybe too well. He cracked his opponent Sunday like a man working over a hard-boiled egg. Slowly. He did it the same way he made history, joining Bjorn Borg as the only man to win five Wimbledon titles. Patiently. The only way Sampras knows how to do anything. Deliberately.
Maybe too deliberately.
``There was a report in a British newspaper ...'' began a question to the just-crowned champion.
The sentence wasn't done before Sampras winced, almost reflexively. He is nothing if not composed. And so he pasted his hand across his forehead, bracing for what was coming next.
``... that if you won today, you were going to get engaged. Is there going to be a double celebration?''
``No,'' Sampras blurted out, then glanced quickly to his left at a two-way mirror, behind which his movie-star girlfriend, Kim Williams, was tucked away.
Whatever information he gleaned, Sampras kept to himself. By the time he turned back to face the roomful of reporters, he was already plotting his next move.
``No,'' he said, now shaking his head slowly from side to side. ``Uh-unh.''
There, in the span of a few seconds, you have the essence of Sampras, on the court or off. He sizes up a situation. He figures out where he is strongest and his opponent weakest. Then, he pours everything in his being in that direction, but gently, almost too gently, like water out to wear down rocks.
This is not to say Sampras plays a dull, eroding baseline game, though he is probably capable of that, too. But against the wacky, left-handed Goran Ivanisevic on this cool, windswept afternoon, what the situation demanded of Sampras was almost exactly the opposite.
He needed to tighten up his own service game. He had to steal a few more points on Ivanisevic's laser-like serve. He needed to dial in a little more topspin to make his returns and passing shots dive a little quicker back to earth.
Above all, he needed to show no fear to Ivanisevic, a never-far-from-the-edge personality who describes his own game as ``always either horror or thriller,'' but never anything in between. And the fact that he needed to do all of those things occurred to Sampras just about the time he fell into a tiebreaker for the second set, already a set down.
``That was really a huge part of the match,'' he said. ``There's almost nothing that separates Goran and I at this stage of the tournament, especially with the tough conditions.
``But I managed to raise my level just at the right time,'' Sampras said, ``and that's what it takes sometimes.''
That is the true wonder of Sampras, but also the quality that is most maddening about him. He can always find exactly enough to get over the top. His record clearly marks him as the greatest player of his era, and with 11 Grand Slam titles now, it makes an ever-more persuasive argument for naming him the greatest of any era.
By the same token, you can also count on one hand the number of stirring victories Sampras has compiled since beating Andre Agassi in 1990 to become the youngest U.S. Open champion in history. There was an emotional win, or two - such as when he beat Jim Courier at the Australian Open just after his coach, Tim Gullikson, was diagnosed with cancer. And there were a few gutsy wins, as well - for example, hen Sampras, weakened by repeated bouts of vomiting, fought off dehydration and Alex Corretja at the U.S. Open.
But that's been pretty much it.
Sampras has never ducked anyone, but like boxer Larry Holmes, there is the sense he hasn't had the competition to raise his game to its highest level. Agassi was supposed to provide that, but the best sparring between the two has been confined to Nike commercials.
There's been no Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe to bring out whatever fire smolders beneath his gentleman's veneer. Sampras' rivals are largely in the history books - Borg, the man he just tied with five Wimbledon titles, and Rod Laver, who also has 11 Grand Slams; and Roy Emerson, who has 12.
``I put him in the stratosphere ... in the upper echelon,'' said John McEnroe, who collected seven Grand Slam titles before making his way to the broadcast booth. ``It's hard to say who's the best.''
And Sampras - no surprise - is loathe to make the argument for himself. This is as far as he would go.
``It's great,'' he said, ``to be in this position.''Post your comments about SportsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web