Grand
Slam No. 5: Wimbledon 1994
Headline
news and press conference
Sampras
in a zone of his own
by Diane Pucin
WIMBLEDON, England - Pete Sampras threw
two rackets into the crowd and two shirts,
too. He said he would have stripped to
nothing and thrown all his clothes to the
crowd if that would have won him a second
straight Wimbledon title.
Sampras didn't need to strip on Centre
Court. He just needed to serve. His serve is
hurtful. It twists, it turns, it digs a
little hole in the ground sometimes.
Sampras needed to volley, too. His volleys
are cruel. The wrist twists, and the racket
hits the ball at angles so low that no human
can get it.
Sampras also needed to return serve well.
His backhand service return curves down the
line like some boomerang, except that it
doesn't come back. It just lands softly and
out of reach.
Pete Sampras won his second straight
Wimbledon title yesterday with the serve, the
volley, the return. The No. 1 seed beat No. 4
seed Goran Ivanisevic, 7-6(7-2), 7-6(7-5),
6-0, in the final. The match lasted 1 hour 33
minutes, four minutes less than the
best-of-three women's final had taken.
"I feel great," Sampras said.
"I'm pumped, man."
He's just too good. That's what Ivanisevic
said about Sampras nine times yesterday.
Sampras played unbelievable. Ivanisevic said
that twice.
Ivanisevic, the tall, skinny Croatian with
the serve of death, had been boisterous and
boastful before his second Wimbledon final.
He had noted that Sampras had trouble with
his lefty serve and that he, Ivanisevic, held
a 5-3 career edge over the American.
Ivanisevic had added that he was playing very
good tennis, and that he had big plans for
this Wimbledon, and good luck, Pete.
So Ivanisevic blasted 16 aces in the first
set but lost it. Sampras accepted the aces
gracefully. He would just walk to the half of
the baseline and wait for another serve.
Ivanisevic was hitting all those aces, but
Sampras was getting all the break points. He
got five in the first set. And he didn't
seize one. Trouble, you'd think -- wasting
precious break points. But what it showed was
that Sampras had the more creative game.
Ivanisevic could draw the breath from the
crowd when his serve practically knocked
Sampras off his feet. But Sampras drew the
soft sighs from the crowd when he floated
dainty service returns past the flummered
Ivanisevic. Or when he almost kneeled to pick
the ball off the tips of the grass, then
directed it cross-court while Ivanisevic bit
his lip or slid like a novice skater, clumsy
and desperate, as he tried to retrieve the
shot.
Sampras won the last six points of the
first set tie-break with a first serve that
Ivanisevic returned into the net, with a
backhand winner, with a vicious forehand
return that Ivanisevic lunged at and swatted
long; with a fabulous backhand pass that
Ivanisevic tipped wide; with a cruel backhand
volley; and with another big first serve that
Ivanisevic flailed at.
There was no hope for Ivanisevic, who lost
the second set tie-break because Sampras
plucked a ball that was almost dead in the
grass and turned it into a cross-court
backhand volley.
After that, Ivanisevic was a mess, talking
to himself and hitting double faults and
wild, no hope shots.
Sampras had shrieked and pumped his fist
on that last point of the second tie-break.
Ivanisevic mumbled for the 20 minutes it took
to finish the third set.
Sampras is far and away the best tennis
player in the world right now. There is no
vulnerable part of his game.
Ivanisevic found that out. His game plan
turned into this: try to serve well and hope
Sampras misses some serves and gives him
chances to return.
"Then the guy doesn't miss so many
serves," Ivanisevic said. "I don't
have so many chances for the second serve.
That's tough. I mean, then, it's not too much
game plan. It's just hoping."
Just hoping. That's what it's like playing
Sampras now. He is 22 years old, and he has
won four of the last five Grand Slam
tournaments and reached the quarters of the
French Open. He is the first player since
Boris Becker in 1985 and 1986 to win
consecutive Wimbledons.
Sampras leads the computer rankings by
more points than anyone has since the
rankings came into existence in 1973. For two
weeks, other players have said that, for the
time being, they've given up the thought of
being ranked first.
"One year and a half, Pete's been
playing this level of tennis -- very high,
" Ivanisevic said.
So all there is is hope. Hope that Sampras
gets bored, gets hurt, gets worse by magic.
Sampras isn't interested in getting bored
or hurt or worse. He is quiet and he is
criticized for not being flamboyant or able
to offer up great and funny quotes. He
doesn't cause a ruckus on the court or swear
or dye his hair or design psychedelic
clothes. He is interested in history and
being part of history.
"The Grand Slam wins that I've had
are something that's proven to people that I
can go down in the history books," he
said. "Winning the Grand Slams - that's
the answer. That's the best thing I can
give."
Only 22 and Sampras owns two Wimbledons,
two US Opens, and an Australian Open title.
He keeps giving the right answer.
Article supplied
by Sandie Anthony
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Sampras
able to show emotion, too
by: Al Picker
WIMBLEDON - Critics of Pete
Sampras say he's a great player but he
doesn't show enough emotion on the court.
That cool-as-cucumber,
all-business veneer was pulled away yesterday
when Sampras let out some piercing screams as
he got closer and closer to victory over
Goran Ivanisevic in the men's singles final.
When the final point was won,
the 22-year-old American star flung his
racket skyward and it landed some six rows
back, where a female fan wrestled the prize
from other grappling hands. She certainly
knew what to do with it. She immediately sent
it to the dressing room for the champion's
autograph.
When Sampras reached the
sideline after his moment of triumph, beaming
broadly, he whipped off his shirt and threw
it into the stands. Then, he grabbed another
out of his bag and tossed it to the fans.
The, he flipped his Wimbledon towel.
"I would have taken all
of my clothes off...two (titles) in a
row," said Sampras, still feeling the
euphoria that envelopes a champion who has
just made a successful defense.
But not quite; he needed his
third shirt to wear for the award ceremony
that followed on Centre Court. Pete was so
close to perfection, it's hard to fault him.
He made his only mistake in the historic
arena when he forgot the customary bow to
royalty during a greetings exchange with the
Duke and Duchess of Kent.
Sampras's efforts during his
straight set success were a command
performance worthy of royal respect.
The racket, shirts and towel
left his hands rather quickly. What stayed
firmly in his grasp, though, was the silver
trophy he held high over his head during the
traditional champion's walk around the outer
reaches of the court where the
"commoners" greeted him warmly.
It wasn't the roaring ovation
that Martina Navratilova received after
failing a day earlier to win a 10th women's
title against Conchita Martinez. And it
certainly would have paled to what might have
been the response generated had Andre Agassi
been king for a day.
"I think I'm winning
their hearts," observed Sampras.
"My main concern is to focus on winning
and I just hope people can appreciate how I
go about my tennis and how I play."
Superbly, Pete just goes
about playing the old fashioned way. He earns
his points with brilliant play. No time for
emotional displays during a match that will
sidetrack his intense concentration on the
business at hand.
"You're not going to see
a lot of communicating with the crowd because
I feel like I really can't do both and stay
focused on winning.
"People can say what
they want, but the fact is that I have two in
a row and that's going to stay with me
forever."
Sampras hopes to have the
same love affair with Wimbledon as
Navratilova has had.
"I'd like to be around
here dominating for as many years as I
can," Sampras noted, "as long as
I'm healthy and I'm enjoying the game.
Hopefully, I can stay on top for as long as
my body can handle it."
Sampras admitted being swept
up with the tide of emotions generated by
Martina's try for a 10th title in her final
year.
"I felt for her,"
he said. "She wanted badly to end on a
positive note. I don't know if I'll play
until I'm 37, but I hope tha tone day, the
last time I walk off the court, I can get the
same response."
Comparing his emotions and
thoughts of a year ago to this triumphant
moment, Sampras had to collect his thoughts.
"Right now, I'm feeling
pretty stoked, " he said. "The
first one is something you never forget. The
second is just a little bit sweeter."
Sampras always talks about
his admiration for Aussie greats, Rod Laver
and Ken Rosewall. He feels they were class
acts.
Class is a word he uses
frequently, wanting to be a "class"
player, winning in a "class" way.
"I want to win in a
class way, receiving a great response from
the crowd," the 22-year-old Tampa, Fla.
resident said. "I don't throw my racket
or yell at umpires, maybe now and then, but
not very often, like the Australians.
"They won with a bit of
grace and that's something I've always tried
to emulate."
Because of his resolute
avoidance of controversy, because of his
wary, unaggressive demeanor both on and off
the court, it has been easy to underestimate
the enormity of Sampras's achievements.
Pete became the youngest U.S.
Open champ in 1990 and was runnerup to Stefan
Edberg in 1992 in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.
Great champions win great
tournaments and that is what Pete Sampras is
all about these days. He has won four of the
last five Grand Slams.
He watched films of Laver
when he was a youngster. He considers
"The Rocket" the greatest player of
all time and would like someday to be
favorably compared to him.
Sampras is going about his
business in a manner that certainly will
place him in consideration as one of the
game's great champions.
"I'm getting
closer," said Sampras, responding to how
he feels to be part of tennis lore. "I'm
getting there.
"The Grand Slam
victories I've had in the last couple of
years is something that proves to people and
to myself that, hopefully, I can go down in
those history books."
Sampras is not the sharpest
conversationalist. But like his game, he has
come a long way from his less communicative
teen days. He has learned to articulate his
thoughts in a measured and thoughtful manner.
When asked what is takes to
be a champion, he gave a clear response that
youngsters with similar ambitions should
heed:
"You need some talent,
you need hard work, you need discipline and
you need the determination to keep trying to
get better. You have to have that burning
desire to improve.
"All these ingredients
are needed to be a champion."
And what does Sampras think
are his chances whenever he enters a
tournament?
"I feel that every
tournament I enter will not be satisfying
unless I win," he said. "To get
knocked off, I need to be playing someone
that's really on while I have to be having an
off day."
Champions talk that way.
Article supplied
by Sandie Anthony
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Sampras:
Star of undramatic final
... Sure people who had the TV turned on,
turned off their sets. It was such a nice
day. I'm sure they went outside and
sunbathe."
It was one of the hottest days in
Wimbledon history, 116 degrees on Centre
Court. With no rain the past week, the grass
was dry and fast, virtually guaranteeing
there would be no long rallies. But that
didn't bother Sampras. He loved the
conditions and the winner's prize - $
517,500. Ivanisevic earned half that amount.
The victory was the eighth of the year for
the topranked Sampras, who had won four of
the last five Grand slams, losing only in the
French Open to Jim Courier.
"I thought the tennis was very high
class today," said Sampras, whose serve
was never broken and who faced only two break
points all match. "Maybe you're not
seeing a lot of long rallies, but it's tough
to hit a serve that hard in a matter of three
or four inches. When you have two guys who
play very similar like us, you're not going
to see a lot of rallies."
The absence of drama had less to do with
the aces and two or three shot rallies than
it did with the score. It was as if everyone
wanted to press fast forward in the first two
sets to get to the tiebreakers, knowing that
neither player would yield serve. Yet when
the tiebreakers came, they concluded in
straightforward fashion, Ivanisevic never
threathening Sampras.
When Ivanisevic had two break points
against him, trailing 4-3 in the first set,
he uncranked an ace and two service winners,
then closed out the game with another ace.
When he faced three more breakpoints at
love-40 in his next service game, he slammed
four more aces. His 15th ace sent the set
into the tiebreaker, his 16th gave him a 2-1
lead, but then Sampras won six straight
points to win the set.
If there was any thrill in watching the
match it was seeing the sheer power and
accuracy of the two players, serves with top
speed approaching 130 mph and skipping off
the lines. It was a little like seeing two
pitchers throwing a shootout against each
other with 15 strikeout apiece. It may not
produce much action, but it can be exciting.
The difference here was that all of
Sampras's and Ivanisevic's matches have been
this way for two weeks and their power
nullified each other until Ivanisevic simply
wore down mentally.
"It's tough," said Ivanisevic,
whose performance here will lift him from No.
4 to No. 2 in the new ATP rankings today.
"You lose two sets 7-6, it puts pressure
on me, and I have to keep that level because
he was all over me. I didn't have much chance
because he was playing better and better. I
think he was just too good. Then you crack a
little."
There is nothing that could be done about
the non-rallies with these players under
these conditions, and nothing is likely to be
done to prevent a repeat of this kind of
match in the future. It is in the nature of
grasscourt tennis.
"You can put a clay court down, but
that's not going to happen," Sampras
said. "I remember watching (John)
Newcombe play a big German fellow. They
didn't have a lot of long rallies. You saw
(Bjorn) Borg win here so many years and you
saw long rallies.
"Now you have two big serve and
volley players like Goran and myself. You're
not going to see long rallies. That's the
bottom line."
Article supplied
by Sandie Anthony
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Sampras
overpowers Ivanisevic to repeat as men's champion
By: ROBIN FINN (New York Times)
Originally Published on: 7/04/94
WIMBLEDON, England - Another superhuman
effort, another Grand Slam title for Pete
Sampras, the player who has lately made
invincibility look easy. On a steamy
afternoon when the brevity of point-making
made plenty of survival sense, Sampras
blasted by Goran Ivanisevic in straight sets,
7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-5), 6-0, to become the
first man since Boris Becker in 1986 to
successfully defend his Wimbledon title.
His immediate reaction to the victory was
to douse himself with ice water, hurl his
racquet into the stands, rip off his shirt
and send it skyward as a souvenir. Then, with
a fresh shirt in place atop his baggy shorts,
he ambled over to shake the pair of royal
hands that hand over the trophy he covets
most.
No pyrotechnics for Sampras, 22, just a
steady progress that has rendered his the
most complete game in the Open era and, quite
possibly, ever. ``The Grand Slam wins I've
had in the last couple years is something
that's proven to people and to myself that
hopefully I can go down in the history
books,'' said Sampras, for whom winning his
second Wimbledon championship and fifth Slam
over all is all part of a master plan to join
immortals like his role model, Rod Laver, in
the record books. ``Winning the Grand Slams,
that's the answer,'' said Sampras, whose next
task is the defense of his 1993 U.S. Open
title but whose hope for a 1994 Grand Slam
was spoiled last month with a quarterfinal
loss at the French Open.
After dissecting Ivanisevic's game with
increasing efficiency this afternoon, Sampras
explained the ingredients that have gone into
his own game in the course of an 18-month
span in which virtually every opponent has
routinely hailed him for playing at a level
above the fray.
"You need some talent, you need some
hard work, you need discipline and
determination to keep on trying to get
better,'' said Sampras, who admitted he was
happy with ``all categories'' of his game
Sunday.
"I'm No.1, I won last year, and I
want to win it again, so I've got that
burning desire to keep on getting better,''
he said. Sampras has compiled a 14-match
unbeaten streak at Wimbledon, and his victory
over Ivanisevic gave him a 12-0 record
against left-handers, who used to bother him
back when his game was played on a less
ethereal plain. Although the second-ranked
Ivanisevic out-aced him by 25 to 17, Sampras
was twice as effective at net, nearly three
times as accurate from the baseline and
allowed the baffled Croat only two break
points and squelched them both with big
serves.
"I never had a chance,'' said
Ivanisevic, 22. ``He was always serving
unbelievable, he played unbelievable, and
today he hit some great returns, so I have to
hit a great volley or I'm in big trouble.''
Ivanisevic's only other appearance in a
Grand Slam final came at Wimbledon in a
five-set loss against Andre Agassi in 1992.
``When you lose to a guy like Pete it hurts
less than it did two years ago,'' he said,
``because two years ago I knew I had a good
chance. But today, he was just too good.''
Sampras has now collected four of the last
five Grand Slam crowns, has already won eight
tournaments in 1994, which matches his total
from last year, and has taken his No.1
ranking to a height unlikely to be scaled by
any challenger for the duration of the year.
He said he couldn't worry about the staccato
pace of the match, in which just three
rallies contained more than five shots.
``It's a grass court, and you have two big
serve-and-volley players like Goran and
myself, so you're not going to see long
rallies; that's the bottom line,'' he said.
``But when it comes down to a tie breaker
like it did today, that's exciting. I knew
the match was going to come down to a couple
of points, and I got them.''
Sampras so nearly approached flawlessness
in this 1-hour-55-minute final, which began
as a serving race but concluded in a rout, he
felt compelled to apologize to Ivanisevic
after it was all over. ``He just said
`Sorry'wasn't that nice from himand he said,
`I couldn't play any better,''' Ivanisevic
said.
Through the first 12 games, neither player
seemed able to adjust to the speed of the
incoming serves, which in both cases averaged
nearly 120 mph. But Ivansevic, previously 6-3
in tie breakers against Sampras, faltered
badly at those stages Sunday, serving only
one ace. In the 10th game of the first set,
Ivanisevic saved three set points, two of
them with aces, before closing out the game
with another ace.
``That's where I told myself not to get
down on myself,'' said Sampras, who did
precisely that in his semifinal loss to
Ivanisevic at Wimbledon in 1992. ``When I
played him here two years ago, he was acing
me left and right and I did get down on
myself. Today I told myself to stay
positive.''
As soon as Sampras earned a fourth set
point and went up by 6-2 in the tie breaker
with a backhand crosscourt volley, Ivanisevic
surrendered the set by pumping a backhand
return out of bounds. The pattern of the
second tie breaker was similar, with
Ivanisevic playing an unproductive game of
catch-up that took him only as far as 5-5.
Sampras cracked a serve and backhand volley
winner to reach set point, then rifled a
backhand pass down the line that Ivanisevic
couldn't handle
BACK TO TOP
Sampras puts wood in frame
By: Barry Flatman
Pete Sampras surveyed the bombardment
tennis had taken after his second Wimbledon
triumph and said: "If they want to bring
back wooden rackets, that's fine by me."
The world no. 1 is only too aware of the
criticism his sport suffered following the
ace-splattered men's final shoot-out with
Goran Ivanisevic.
But he maintained the players had become just
too good for Wimbledon's speedy grass rather
than dig up the hallowed turf, he was willing
to listen to other alternatives.
He agreed the most simple way to bring about
a reduction of power would be a return to
wooden rackets.
Another would be to use heavier, less
pressurised tennis balls, although
Wimbledon's are the weightiest used on the
world circuit. "I really would not have
a problem with going back to a wooden racket,
so long as all the other guys did the
same." said 22-year-old Sampras. "I
grew up playing with a wooden racket, the
older Jack Kramer autograph number.
POWER
"I used it until I was 14 and I think
that's the reason my strokes are the way they
are. Nowadays, kids are growing up with these
graphite, wide-bodied models and they are not
learning to hit the ball properly." None
of the world's top players use wide-bodied,
which do give added power, but all use
graphite, knowing anything less would leave
them exposed.
Sampras is looking to add three more
Wimbledon titles to his collection and equal
Bjorn Borg's unique feat of the game's modern
era.
"Five in a row is tough and it's more
dangerous out there now but if I play the way
I did this year, then it's possible,"
said Sampras.
Article
supplied by Georgia Christoforou
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