Grand
Slam No. 12: Wimbledon 1999
Headline news and
press conference
Six-gun
salute to Sampras
By Paul Hayward (UK TELEGRAPH)
PETE SAMPRAS is entitled to
be recognised as one of the great athletes of
this vanishing 20th century. There will be
those who question the right of a tennis
player to be mentioned on the same page as
Muhammad Ali or Pele. They are in urgent need
of medication. Sampras's body was on Centre
Court as he recorded his sixth Wimbledon
victory in seven years yesterday but his
spirit was far above.
A straight-sets victory over
Andre Agassi, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, took Sampras
level with Roy Emerson's record of 12 titles
in Grand Slam events. Emerson will be an ex-
record-holder very soon. Technically, Agassi
is world No 1 this morning. But the computer
that came up with that calculation is off
with the electronic fairies.
In the first two sets
especially, Sampras's game rose to a place
where the rest of us will never go, except as
dazzled voyeurs. It was sport as
transcendence. And now many followers of the
game will happily give up hope of ever seeing
anything better on a tennis court.
There were 128 players in the
men's singles a fortnight ago, and the other
126 must have shrivelled as they watched
Sampras unravel his almost manically intense
fellow American.
For a fortnight Agassi had
borne the look of a prize-fighter who had
just burst out of a gym ready to wreak havoc.
For six matches, he did. Then this.
"I ran into a bus
today," he said.
"This is probably the
best I've played in many years," Sampras
said. "Andre brings out the best in me.
He elevates my tennis to a level that's
phenomenal. I need to be at my best against
him. If I'm not, it's a long day."
It took Sampras only 1 hr 54
min to break Agassi's winning sequence of 13
matches, stretching back last month's French
Open in Paris. "If he always plays that
way against me, I'm going to win two out of
every 10," Agassi said.
Two is stretching it a bit.
In this form, Sampras is able to levitate
like Michael Jordan. He can cut, slice,
drive, lob and volley expertly. Most of all,
he can summon a champion's will to play
better than he has all fortnight, to do
what's necessary and meet each threat.
Time is running out for
sport's lavishly rewarded quasi pop stars to
demand inclusion in the century's absolute
and unchallengeable elite. Sampras is
definitely in. The only player to have won
seven Wimbledon men's titles was a Corinthian
called W C Renshaw in the 1880s. Sportsmen
were so unheralded in those days that they
had to make do with initials.
Agassi - who ought to know -
thinks Sampras could win three or four more
titles. Already, he has won 12 of the 14
Grand Slam finals he has contested.
The man has everything: most
obviously, yesterday, that sacred capacity to
crank up his own excellence so that even the
most accomplished opponent feels as if he is
trying to light a barbecue in a typhoon.
Agassi said it best: "I
went out there expecting him to be a big pain
in the ass. I knew he would play big in the
biggest situations. He played some impeccable
tennis at the important times. You've got to
weather his storm. When you do that he's
vulnerable, but his storm was too strong
today."
The point is that Sampras's
performance went way beyond what seems
possible to the eye. If a measure of
greatness is how many times one feels
startled, astonished, bemused during a match,
then the 24th meeting of Sampras and Agassi
felt like a display of greatness in an event
that has too often descended into an
exposition of naked power.
These were the world's two
best players, no doubt about that. Tim Henman
now knows the length of the voyage to the
top.
The first majestic rally
fizzed into being in the fourth game of the
first set, when both players began striking
the ball with the kind of crispness and range
that confirms each to be in exemplary form.
With his first break of
serve, Sampras let out a yelp. Agassi had
been bustling around the All England Club as
if he had been sticking his fingers in an
unearthed socket. Towel, ball, towel, ball:
he and the ballboy who kept him in weapons
and wipedowns were starting to become best
friends. But then Sampras's brilliance began
to take hold, and Agassi's pigeon-toed
swagger began to apply itself to the less
glamorous business of retrieval.
Sampras won the first set 6-3
and broke his compatriot again in the first
game of the second. "He knows he can
make great things happen in a minute and a
half," Agassi said. He saved another two
break points in the second set but lost that
one too, 6-4.
"Remember the French
Open," someone cried, but this was not
Andrei Medvedev in the other half of the
court (Agassi came back from two sets down to
win in Paris). Nostradamus would have had to
have been right for Agassi to get anything
out of this match (even then it would have
been a draw).
At 1-2 and 15-all in the
second set, he provided one of those images
that will endure to the end of the next
century as a portrait of psychic distress.
Agassi hit a fierce backhand cross-court shot
that would have beaten any of those other 126
players in the original draw. But Sampras
took off horizontally, met the ball in
mid-air in the meat of the racket, and
cushioned a return that fell like a raindrop
on the other side of the net. Agassi looked
as if he had been sprayed with liquid
nitrogen.
Frozen, disbelieving, he
started at the spot where Sampras had played
the winner and finally looked to his corner
for reassurance that he hadn't gone mad. It
happened, all right.
Sampras finished him off with
two aces to take a 3-1 lead and start soaring
towards the end of the match.
There was a time not long ago
when Agassi was in danger of resembling his
home town of Las Vegas: decadent, overfed, a
mirage. This year, though, he has come
roaring back: an artist and a warrior capable
of destroying Patrick Rafter in straight
sets. Agassi, only the fifth man to win all
four Grand Slams, must have felt his own
hyper-intensity was carrying him unstoppably
through. But the greater the velocity, the
harder the crash.
Agassi was more threatening
in the third set but found himself trying to
retrieve two break points again at 5-5. The
game was lost with a timid backhand into the
net and from there, Sampras had only to serve
out for the match. He won it, typically, with
a shot that has never been seen in the parks.
An ace on his second serve.
All this, remember, in a year
when Sampras has played less tennis with less
success than usual. When he pulled out of
this year's Australian Open, citing fatigue,
he had competed in 27 consecutive Grand
Slams. Ah, the fire was dimming. Ha, ha.
"I'm still spinning a bit. I'm still a
little overwhelmed by what I've done,"
he said. It was not the sixth Wimbledon or
the 12th Grand Slam that had him turning. It
was the fresh, cold memory of how sublimely
he had played.
BACK TO TOP
Sampras
Overpowers Agassi for 6th Title
Sampras cruises past Agassi for his 6th Wimbledon
title
Bruce Jenkins, (San Francisco Chronicle)
Wimbledon, England -- You got
the feeling Pete Sampras felt alone with that
trophy, even as polite applause swirled
around Centre Court and the British royalty
served pomp with their circumstance. Sampras
has always been alone, in essence, and now he
shares his solitude with history.
Sampras is the champion who
never has been fully embraced, by the press
or the British public or the casual American
fan. Occasionally he resents the
indifference, but mostly he doesn't care.
Sampras' greatest friends are in his trophy
case, and after yesterday's 6-3, 6-4, 7-5
dismantling of Andre Agassi in the Wimbledon
final, he is truly a man for the record
books.
With his 12th Grand Slam
title, Sampras joined Australian great Roy
Emerson as the all-time leaders. With his
sixth Wimbledon title, he became the first
man this century to make that claim (one W.C.
Renshaw won seven in the 1880s). He's 6-for-6
in Wimbledon finals and 12-2 in Grand Slam
finals, a winning percentage better than
Laver, Borg, Tilden or anyone else.
``And when he's playing this
well on grass,'' Agassi said yesterday,
``nobody's going to beat him.''
This was a finals
doubleheader strangely devoid of tension or
emotion -- fitting for a Fourth of July on
British soil -- but they were cheering like
hell in Southern California. It was quite
enough to have Wimbledon's first
American-born sweep since John McEnroe and
Chris Evert in 1981. Sampras and women's
champion Lindsay Davenport are from the same
town, for heaven's sake, having both grown up
in the pleasant beachside community of Palos
Verdes (Los Angeles County).
Davenport's victory was
stunning in its precision, reinforcing her
status as the world's No. 1 player. Sampras'
was otherworldly, a performance so dominant,
it left everyone in amazement.
``That's the closest thing to
perfection,'' marveled 1987 champion Pat
Cash, ``that you will ever see on a tennis
court.''
To appreciate what happened,
you had to consider the buildup. While
Sampras hadn't played particularly well in
the tournament, it was hard to imagine anyone
better than Agassi in his three-set rout of
Patrick Rafter, the two-time U.S. Open
champion, on Saturday. Agassi is the first
player since Jimmy Connors with the ability
to win Wimbledon from the baseline, and many
predicted a repeat of Agassi's stunning title
run in '92.
In truth, Agassi played about
seven or eight minutes of subpar tennis
yesterday. On Sampras' stage, that's all it
took to bring him down. Agassi might be the
best service returner in history, but against
Sampras, he couldn't manage a single break.
They all went the other way, always with
devastating consequences.
Serving at 3-4 and 15-40 in
the first set, Agassi netted a forehand to
give Sampras an opening. Forget it: Sampras
served out the set with his seventh ace of
the still-young match. Sensing the kill,
Sampras immediately broke Agassi at love for
a 1-0 lead -- so cash in the second set, as
well. But save a moment for the highlight
reel: Sampras' all-out, Boris Becker-like
dive to his left for a spectacular volley
winner that left a long, nasty cut on his
right arm. He was truly in the ``zone'' now,
and when they asked him about it afterward,
Sampras was at a loss.
``It's all just incredible to
me,'' he said. ``I don't know how I do it, to
be honest with you.''
He does it alone, that's for
certain, and he always has.
Pete didn't have one of those
tennis dads from hell. Sam Sampras used to
drop him off at his matches and practice
sessions and then leave, telling the kid he'd
pick him up afterward. To this day, the man
cannot bear to look -- even on television --
as his son charges through history.
``Not to get too heavy, but
maybe that's where I get my independence and
the way I am on the court,'' Sampras said in
a recent Tennis magazine article. ``I was
this 11-year- old kid out there by myself,
because my dad was going for a walk.''
Sampras grew up watching
films of Rod Laver and the other great
Australians, savoring everything about them:
the championships, the courage, the quiet and
gracious manner. He grew into a modern-day
reincarnation, Palos Verdes style, and he
never even considered a Hollywood lifestyle.
``You can't have a rock-star image and also
be No. 1 for a number of years,'' he said
recently. ``I've never thought you could have
the popularity and the results.''
At times, Agassi has had
both. But seldom for long, and never at
Wimbledon if Pete was on the other side of
the net. So switch now to yesterday's third
set, on serve at 5-5. Sampras throws a
changeup on his backhand service return,
chipping a soft little slice. Agassi draws a
bead on it but hammers his backhand into the
net, embarrassingly. There's the break -- and
the curtains.
"People think Pete's
walking on water until he starts missing a
little,'' said Agassi. ``But today he didn't.
So he did walk on water.''
The match point was vintage
Sampras. A lot of left-handers enter the
discussion about the greatest serve of all
time, notably John McEnroe, Goran Ivanisevic
and Roscoe Tanner. But with apologizes to
Pancho Gonzalez, there's no doubt about the
right-handed serve. Sampras leaves everyone
behind, whether it's pace, kick, variety or
consistency. And on match point at Wimbledon,
a few ticks past the stroke of 4 p.m., he hit
a blistering ace with his second serve.
``That's the one shot you
need to win here,'' said Sampras. ``And that
was a great one. I surprised myself.''
Sampras didn't shout, cry,
fall to his knees or use the courtside fans
as steppingstones. He just threw up his arms
and smiled. It was a gesture of relief,
suggesting a man who had just finished some
heavy lifting.
And as the terribly British
postmatch ceremony unfolded, the hostess was
wearing a tablecloth. Normally, the Duchess
of Kent strikes the very image of royalty.
Yesterday, for some reason, she appeared in a
red-and-white checkerboard dress. It was if
all her clothes had been stolen, and in the
morning desperation the Duke chimed in: ``I
think I've got it, dear. Look what I've found
in the picnic basket.''
After the customary
jolly-goods and small talk, Agassi began to
draw a lot of attention as he paraded the
runner-up's plate before some adoring fans.
There is no protocol for such a thing, so
Pete sort of wandered over there with the big
cup. Agassi pretended to hit him with the
plate. Sampras fired back with a similar
gesture. Hearty laughter all around. For
Sampras, a veritable vaudeville routine.
Maybe the trouble with
Sampras is that in his unflappable way, he
doesn't convey just how much he appreciates
all this. In turn, maybe that's why the
public has so much difficulty appreciating
him. But Sampras has always felt that his
game and his manners would have worked much
better 30 years ago, that he was ``born at
the wrong time,'' as he says.
So there he was, in his
living room, essentially, standing exactly
where Laver, Borg and Tilden had stood before
him. He stood there joyously, for he needed
no company. He was alone with the shadows and
the pages of history.
BACK
TO TOP
Awesome
display of power was beyond belief
By John McEnroe
IT'S appropriate on a
fantastic day for American tennis to use a
very English word to describe Pete Sampras.
Majestic.
A sixth Wimbledon singles
victory in seven years is awesome in anyone's
language. There are plenty of guys who know
how to play on the grass, who feel good on
the surface and are dangerous, so for Pete to
lose only one match in seven years speaks for
itself.
The final was a letdown, not
because Andre Agassi didn't do himself
justice, more because Pete was quite
brilliant and no-one could have handled that
kind of power. When Andre won the French last
month, I suspected it would light a fire
under Pete and look at his response.
No matter how well Agassi was
returning, if you serve as well as Pete did
yesterday, he has to have the edge. We hadn't
seen Pete play at his best in the
championship before the final. He had his
scare and got lucky against Mark
Philippoussis, and then everything fell into
place for him.
He hit his forehand returns
of serve better than one of the finest
forehand returners in history - even if he
wasn't seeing quite the same serve Andre was.
Andre told me straight after the match he
couldn't remember anyone hitting the ball
that consistently hard against him. He
expected Pete to chip his backhand and wait
for his opportunity, to chip and come in, but
instead Pete went for it and struck the ball
so cleanly, so often. It was unbelievable.
When you see someone playing
that well, it's hard to believe he could
possibly go up another level. I'm sure seeing
Andre out of the corner of his eye meant Pete
was fully focused. They had a rivalry in the
early Nineties which fell by the wayside,
they hadn't met in a major since the final of
the 1995 US Open, but Andre presented just
the type of player and personality Pete
required to bring out the best in him. He
should thank Andre for that.
Pete has reached a remarkable
comfort level at Wimbledon. He has shown he
has the ability to recover quickly, even if
he's playing day after day as you often have
to here because of the suspensions and
delays.
And, as hard as it is for me
to believe, having played here myself so many
times, it appears that Pete can hold
something back in reserve. He didn't have to
bring out his best in previous rounds -
although he would have had to have done in
the second set against Philippoussis before
the Aussie broke down - but that didn't
affect him. Tim Henman didn't play near the
level he's capable of in the semi-final, he
made it easy for Pete - double-faulting on
set point to lose the second set.
The build-up to the final was
such that its outcome was something of a
letdown because it was semi one-sided. At
3-3, 0-40 on the Sampras serve in the opening
set, something had to give. That moment was
an important juncture. Pete came up with four
monster serves, another brilliant second
serve and won the game. Andre served with new
balls, he started to feel the pressure, had a
slight lapse and the set was gone. As quick
as that.
I sensed that late in the
first set and at the beginning of the second
Andre lost his way, but it's very difficult
not to get uptight when an opponent is
striking the ball at such a level. Andre has
had this tendency to rush and it becomes even
more noticeable when he's losing points. No,
there is no denying the greatness of Pete
Sampras. The trophy is his by rights again,
and we should remember too that he's not just
won on grass, even if half his 12 Grand Slam
titles have come at Wimbledon. I wouldn't put
No 13 beyond him in New York in September.
He had his moment on Centre -
I would like to have had one last chance, but
when Steffi Graf withdrew from the mixed on
Saturday, it had gone. This is probably my
last Wimbledon as a major factor too. I
didn't want to go out that way. Maybe no one
cares, but I care. My kids were here, they
cared. It was great that they were here,
because as bad as I felt, they made me feel
better. I hugged them afterwards, they said
they were proud of me, it was a beautiful
moment.
I wanted to try to win the
championship and what happened still feels
like a punch in the stomach. It's really hard
to speak about it. It didn't feel as though I
said a proper goodbye.
BACK TO TOP
Sampras
puts on show of perfection
By William Johnson (Seattle Times)
ANDRE AGASSI, by some
distance the best returner of serve at these
Championships and entering his second final
on an awesome streak of form, was powerless
yesterday to prevent the storm he faced in
Pete Sampras blowing him off Centre Court.
Agassi had 24 hours earlier
announced his readiness to repeat his 1992
final triumph by performing an equally
ruthless demolition job on Pat Rafter in a
semi-final which offered an intriguing side
issue of the world No 1 ranking to the
winner.
It left him brimming with
confidence of toppling Sampras, provided he
could maintain that tremendously high level
of performance. Apart from a disturbingly
lower percentage of first serves, Agassi did
again rise to the big occasion yet found
himself overwhelmingly second best to
Sampras.
"I feel as though I did
everything I could out there but Pete
produced some impeccable tennis at the most
important times," Agassi said after a
6-3, 6-4, 7-5 hiding by his fellow American.
"The fact that I have risen to No 1 in
the world is fine but today on Centre Court
at Wimbledon I was not No 1."
Agassi never gave up
believing that he could eventually salvage
the lost cause as he had so spectacularly
when winning in the French Open final at
Roland Garros last month. But he looked back
ruefully to the crucial seventh game of the
match when a series of flashing returns
earned him three break points against the
daunting Sampras serve.
The Sampras response was
devastating. Four ferocious service winners,
followed by an unreturnable second serve,
rescued the holder from his first threat of
danger and he then brutally turned the tables
on his opponent by breaking to 15 with the
aid of the most untimely of Agassi's six
double faults.
After serving out gratefully
for the opening set Sampras added to his
opponent's misery by breaking immediately to
love and running up a sequence of 23 points
out of 26, leaving a dejected Agassi to
reflect: "In six minutes I've gone from
3-3, 0-40 to a set and a break down, but
that's how Pete plays. He can turn an entire
match round in a matter of a minute and a
half.
"You've got to weather
his storm. When you do he's vulnerable and
that is when I was going to get my
opportunities. But his storm was too strong
today. I couldn't do it."
Wimbledon, in the eyes of
Agassi, is now at Sampras's mercy for as long
as the six-time champion wants it. A haul of
10 Championships is within reach. "If he
wants to come back and win then he can do so
for the next four years. The guy is simply
the best on grass. The only thing that can
stop him is if he starts getting comfortable
on an LA lifestyle and changes his
priorities."
For Tim Henman and other
would-be successors to this modest master
craftsman that is a chilling thought and
there was no solace in Sampras's debriefing.
The American now has 12 Grand
Slams to equal a landmark reached by Roy
Emerson, the Australian legend, 22 years ago
and, needless to say, he wants more than a
share of that record.
"I'm not thinking of
that right now but once the US Open comes
round and people start talking about it, I
would love to do it - and do it where it all
started for me in 1990. It's not going to be
easy, though."
If Sampras, who declined to
take part in the Australian Open in January
and extended a miserable French record by
falling at the second hurdle, fails at
Flushing Meadow, where a determined Agassi
will be leading the list of those seeking
revenge, then it will be watch out Wimbledon
2000.
"Until now I haven't
played great tennis this year but this is
where it kicked in for me last year and I
feel the same way now. Once I step on to that
Centre Court there is something about this
place that brings out the best in me."
Finishing on top of the
computerised rankings for yet another year
will also be a motivational factor. That, he
said, was of secondary importance as he
struggled to digest the magnitude of his
accomplishment, but to prevent Agassi or
Rafter, winner for the past two years, from
prevailing at Flushing Meadow would go a long
way towards re-establishing him on top of the
world.
If and when he gets there, he
will go beyond the record of 270 weeks set by
Ivan Lendl, who was consistently frustrated
in his desire to win a Wimbledon title.
Sampras, like Agassi, knew
that only the best would be good enough to
take the last title of the millennium on
these lawns. Described by 1987 champion Pat
Cash as being as close to perfection as you
can get, Sampras enthused: "It's
probably the best I've played in many years.
"Quite simply I was
hitting the ball clean from the back of the
court and serving big at the right
time."
Sampras served 17 aces to
Agassi's five and, more surprisingly,
returned 61 per cent of Agassi's serves.
Agassi could manage only 51 per cent.
Sampras, who did not concede
even a break point in the second and third
sets, was confident that one break in each
would take him to his 1hr 54min victory. The
decisive breakthrough in the third set came
in the 11th game when Agassi, who had
gallantly staved off two break points under
intense pressure in the seventh, netted one
of his stock-in-trade double-handers.
Sampras then went to match
point with one ace and produced, impudently,
an ace on second serve to seal his momentous
triumph.
Copyright ©
1999 The Seattle Times Company
BACK
TO TOP
Sampras
stomps Agassi for sixth Wimbledon title
WIMBLEDON, England (July 4,
1999)-- Pete Sampras left skid marks and
blood stains on Centre Court. He flew above
the net for overheads, dived horizontally for
volleys, and to hear an awestruck Andre
Agassi tell it, "he walked on
water" at Wimbledon on Sunday.
Even Sampras couldn't quite
believe the way he came up with some shots in
a 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 victory that brought him his
sixth Wimbledon championship in seven years
and tied him with Roy Emerson for the men's
record of 12 Grand Slam titles.
"I couldn't have played
any better," Sampras said. "In the
beginning, in the middle of the second set, I
was on fire. In all aspects of my game, from
my serving to my groundstrokes, I was playing
in a zone."
If ever a shot deserved to be
saved on film in the Tennis Hall of Fame,
it's the one Sampras produced early in the
second set.
Agassi had sprinted to his
left and come up with a running backhand
crosscourt that would have passed virtually
anyone else at the net where Sampras stood.
It was one of those brutally hard shots that
make such a noise, and come off the racket at
such an angle, that fans start roaring before
it even lands.
But suddenly there was
Sampras, diving flat out, flicking a backhand
drop volley that fell ever so gently on the
other side of the net for a winner. He
belly-whopped hard to the tattered turf,
skidded a yard and tore up the huge scab he
had on his right forearm from other dives the
past two weeks.
Agassi stood on the baseline
and stared in amazement. Sampras inspected
his open wound, wiped himself off, and served
two straight aces at nearly 130 mph to take a
3-1 lead.
"He played some
impeccable tennis at the most important
times," Agassi said.
As if that wasn't convincing
enough, Sampras tried to do it again as he
served for the match at 6-5 in the third set.
This time Agassi ripped a
forehand crosscourt, a shot that came off his
racket once more with a thud. Sampras was
beaten, but he didn't know it, or refused to
believe it. He hurled his body through the
air again, parallel to the court, and just
missed the ball as he skidded on the grass
and tore up his arm a little more.
Sampras' response to that
miss? He wiped off the blood and struck his
16th and 17th aces to end the match, the
first at 127 mph, the next at 110 mph on a
gutsy second serve at 40-30.
"It's so hard to explain
the feeling that I felt serving for the
match," Sampras said. "All of a
sudden the match is on your racket, and you
start breathing heavier. You start thinking,
'Wow, this is it, this is going to go either
way. I could go from winning the title to
playing a tiebreaker in the third set.
"I just kind of went for
it, and I hit a great second serve. That's
the one shot you need to have to win here. It
was a great shot. I surprised myself. I went
up the middle, and the next thing I knew I
was holding the cup."
Sampras took control of the
match with a rush of five straight games,
from 3-3 in the first set to 2-0 in the
second. It was, simply, Sampras at his best.
"That's how Pete
plays," Agassi said. "You've got to
weather his storm. And when you weather his
storm, that's when he's vulnerable. But his
storm was too strong today. I couldn't do
it."
What amazed Agassi even more
than the sight of Sampras flying through the
air, was the way he dared to hit those
second-serve aces at 110 to 120 mph. On this
day, Sampras wasn't playing safe.
"He's taking chances out
there," Agassi said. "People think
he's walking on water until he starts missing
a few of those. But he didn't. So he walked
on water today."
Sampras moved beyond Bjorn
Borg to become the winningest man at
Wimbledon in the open era. He moved out of a
tie with Borg and his longtime idol, Rod
Laver, who each had 11 Grand Slam titles.
The $728,000 he collected for
winning increased his career prize money to
more than $37 million.
At 28 and planning to play
into his early 30s, Sampras should have many
chances to pass Emerson, who collected his
major titles in the less competitive era just
before open tennis started in 1968.
That prospect, and his place
in history, were more than Sampras could
think about in the moments after winning.
"I'm still spinning a
little bit," he said. "It's going
to take a couple of weeks to have it all sink
in. It's a little overwhelming to have won
what I've won. To be honest, I don't know how
I do it, I really don't."
Despite losing, Agassi will
take over the No. 1 spot from Sampras, but it
was a hollow consolation. What meant more to
Agassi was that he knows he's playing well
enough to take a measure of revenge at the
U.S. Open next month.
Agassi had sought to become
the first player since Borg in 1980 to win
the French Open and Wimbledon in succession.
He's completed a career Grand Slam, something
Sampras is missing because of his failures on
the French clay.
But asked whether Sampras is
the greatest player ever, Agassi didn't
hesitate:
"Yes," he said.
"He's accomplished more than anybody
else has, in my opinion. No question about
it. The guy's dominated the grass, and he's
finished the year No. 1 six years in a row.
His achievements speak for themselves.
CBS Sportsline
BACK
TO TOP
Sampras:
King of SW19
BBC
Pete Sampras's sixth Wimbledon title in
seven years has cemented his place in tennis
history as the game's greatest grass court
player. He achieved his 1999 title with
typical flair - two second serve aces - and
in doing so tied Roy Emerson's record of 12
Grand Slam titles, passing Bjorn Borg to
become Wimbledon's greatest men's singles
champion of the last 100 years.
Despite his success, Sampras remains a
reluctant hero.
As a man he is fiercely private, but as a
champion he demands that others appreciate
his achievements.
His pursuit of Grand Slam titles might
have begun as a painfully shy 19-year-old at
the US Open in 1990, but it was at Wimbledon
in 1993, when he defeated Jim Courier in the
final, that his career came of age.
Master of the grass
He has never looked back, treating
the 1996 blip against Holland's Richard
Krajicek in the quarter-finals with typical
contempt to secure consecutive wins over the
next three years.
This year's tournament, more than most in
recent years, has tested him to the full.
He wandered through with hardly so much as
a by-your-leave. The Americans have been as
besotted as the British by the retirement of
Boris Becker, the renaissance of Andre
Agassi, the birth of a new sensation in
Alexandra Stevenson, and John McEnroe's mixed
doubles magic.
Sampras's progress has simply followed its
normal route, undisturbed, understated.
"It's been a strange Wimbledon,"
he said. "There's no magic formula for
dealing with what happens when the schedule
is disrupted, in fact, in my quarter-final
against Mark Philippoussis, I didn't handle
anything very well.
"I've never had a secret here at
Wimbledon. I suppose it has helped having
been here for 10 years, renting a house in
the village, living the same kind of
existence every year.
"I had a massage after the
Philippoussis match, went home, rented a
couple of videos, ate a nice dinner, went to
bed, slept well. That's me."
Champion of champions
If he appears understated, his tennis is not.
The record books continue to be filled with
his exploits and his 1999 victory will send
shivers down the spine of his rivals.
This was Sampras at his weakest, we were
all told before the tournament began.
In the last 18 months, he had sustained a
number of injuries and there were signs that
the game was moving into a post-Sampras era.
Last year, Sampras won four titles,
including Wimbledon where he beat Goran
Ivanisevic in five service-battering sets,
and handed over the number one spot to
Marcelo Rios before winning it back at the
year-end for a record sixth successive year.
The effort required to stay at the top for
so long clearly took its toll on the
27-year-old, both physically and mentally.
His decision not to play Davis Cup for the
US made him few friends and tennis seemed to
give him little enjoyment in 1998 as he
constantly complained about the drudgery of
the tour.
It was brave decision to take some time
off but it worked wonders for Sampras's
psyche. "Not going to Australia was
perhaps not the best decision as far as
tennis is concerned but it was the best
decision of my life," he said.
"I was exhausted, both physically and
mentally, and I needed to take some time
off."
"After all those years I felt like a
robot," he said in May.
Doubters proved wrong
The bookmakers again made Sampras favourite
for Wimbledon after his success at Queens.
But the doubters remained sure that this time
he would slip up.
He did not of course. And if one considers
his history - in form or not - he should
never be underestimated.
Whether he return to defend his title next
year remains to be seen. He has complained
that he is tired of the tour.
"The older I get, I feel I want to
start to enjoy more of what I'm doing,"
he said.
"You think, 'Is this worth it?' If
you don't enjoy the victories, it's not. I've
been at this level, this high level that
people have come to expect from me, for a
long time now.
"The expectation is flattering, in a
way. But at times I want people to appreciate
how difficult it has been."
Few could disagree with him. No-one had
done more on a tennis court than the
mild-mannered American, one whose name will
live on for as long as the game is played.
BACK
TO TOP
Flawless
Sampras wins record-tying title
JULY 4, 1999
WIMBLEDON, England -- Pete Sampras
strengthened his place in tennis history
Sunday, playing with such power and artistry
that even he was in awe.
In an all-American final on the Fourth of
July, Sampras gave a flawless grass-court
performance in overwhelming Andre Agassi 6-3,
6-4, 7-5 for his sixth Wimbledon title in
seven years.
The victory gave Sampras his 12th Grand
Slam championship, equaling Roy Emerson's
record. He has also won the U.S. Open four
times and the Australian Open twice.
"That's probably the best I've played
in many years," Sampras said. "I
couldn't have played any better, plain and
simple."
Said Agassi: "He walked on
water."
The day featured another American
champion, with Lindsay Davenport beating
seven-time winner Steffi Graf 6-4, 7-5 in the
women's final for her first Wimbledon title.
Graf said she played her last Wimbledon
match.
Sampras became the first player in the
Open era to win Wimbledon six times. He's one
short of the mark held by W.C. Renshaw, who
won seven titles in the 1880s.
At 27, Sampras should have plenty of
opportunities to break the Wimbledon and
Grand Slam records, especially if he plays as
he did Sunday.
"I'm still spinning a little
bit," he said. "It's a little
overwhelming to have won what I've won. I
don't know how I do it to be honest with
you."
Agassi considers Sampras the best ever.
"He's accomplished more than anybody
else in my opinion," he said. "He
has dominated on grass. He finished the year
No. 1 six years in a row. His achievements
speak for themselves."
Sampras finished the match with two
straight aces, his 16th and 17th, the final
one on a second serve. After the last ball
whizzed past Agassi, Sampras held both arms
in the air and threw back his head.
"It was a big occasion, on the Fourth
of July," he said. "To win in
straight sets, I didn't think it was going to
happen. Andre brings out the best in me.
There's no question he elevates my game to a
level that is phenomenal."
As Sampras walked around Centre Court
clutching the winner's trophy, Agassi
jokingly threatened to hit Sampras with his
runner-up plate.
The match shaped up as a classic contrast:
the best serve-and-volleyer (Sampras) vs. the
best returner (Agassi). But Sampras dominated
in all phases.
"He played some impeccable tennis at
the most important times," Agassi said.
"I didn't come up with better stuff than
he did."
Agassi, coming off a compelling victory at
the French Open, never got untracked. The
brilliant returns that carried him to the
final barely made a mark against Sampras, who
repeatedly came up with aces and service
winners when he needed them.
Agassi had only four return winners, the
same as Sampras. Sampras was never broken in
the match, while breaking Agassi once in each
set.
Sampras faced only three break points, all
in the same game. Down 0-40 in the seventh
game of the first set, Sampras erased them
all with five big serves.
"That was a huge game," he said.
"He breaks me there and wins the first
set, it's a completely different match.
That's grass-court tennis, when momentum can
switch in a couple of minutes, and I got it
today."
Sampras won five straight games to go up
2-0 in the second and take control. He could
do nothing wrong, slamming aces, blasting
winners from the baseline, knocking off
volleys and overheads.
"I was on fire," he said.
"I was playing in 'the zone.' It was
well as I could play, plain and simple."
The only damage Agassi caused was in the
fourth game of the second set when he sent
Sampras sprawling to hit a spectacular diving
backhand volley winner. Sampras scraped his
right elbow, but responded with two aces to
win the game.
"He played very big at the right
times and he's won for a very good
reason," Agassi said. "You have got
to play the big points well. I could have
served a little better to put him under
pressure. When his nose is out in front he's
really difficult."
Sampras extended his career record against
Agassi to 14-10, including 3-1 in Grand Slam
finals.
"He has a knack for doing things like
that," Agassi said. "He's a
champion. He has proven that."
Agassi had won 13 straight matches and
taken over the No. 1 ranking from Sampras.
But that was little consolation for Sunday's
lopsided defeat.
"I feel mentally and emotionally a
little beat up," he said. "I didn't
feel like I was No. 1 today.
Sampras collected $724,133 while Agassi
received $362,066.
BACK
TO TOP
Pistol
Pete guns down critics
by: James Lawton (www.sportlive.net)
If you're lucky enough hanging around
sport you get to see some remarkable things.
You see Piggott hitting the rising ground at
Epsom as if he is driving a train, you see
Ali in his prime and Schumacher in the rain.
You also see Pete Sampras winning his
sixth Wimbledon title and making Andre
Agassi, the only man to win every Grand Slam
title on four different surfaces, take on the
demeanour of a little boy lost.
There are some who still insist that
Sampras is boring, but this morning they
deserve pity rather than censure. Presumably,
they would have chided da Vinci and
Michaelangelo for being so perfect. Sampras
didn't just touch perfection yesterday. He
hunted it down and wore it like a shining
coat.
Of course he couldn't hold it for the
entire 154 minutes of his three-set
dismantling of the pigeon-toed, knocked-kneed
hero of the crowd who for two solid weeks had
enchanted Wimbledon with both the power and
the exquisite expression of his game.
There were moments when Agassi had
something to say, and if it was mostly
despairing it was also inevitably marked with
brilliance. One fierce rally was as intense
as the shoot-out at the OK Corral, and Agassi
won it at the net.
Such flashes reminded us of the sheer
blazing quality of Agassi, a man who has
modelled his tennis persona on the great
Australian Rod Laver, and at the same time it
defined precisely what we were seeing from
Sampras.
It was tennis off the chart. Tennis of
such authority and poise and flinty edge that
Agassi repeatedly looked stunned by his
inability to inflict himself on the match.
Once Agassi stood for a good 10 seconds
contemplating the scale of his challenge. He
had peeled off a wondrous backhand only to
see a tumbling Sampras steal the point with a
stop volley of absolute nerve and timing.
On another occasion he screamed in anguish
when he failed with a backhand down the line.
He knew then that he was finished, that
whatever he did Sampras would do something
better, something more refined, something
that little bit more unanswerable.
The day before Sampras had ambushed Tim
Henman by breaking him to love in a vital
match. Now he delivered the sword to Agassi
in the same brutal fashion. But on Saturday
Sampras was fighting through a crisis of form
and touch. He had come into the light.
He played a series of backhands from one
corner of the court to the other that were so
geometrically perfect, so filled with
confidence, that the match was just about
over. The explosion came in the seventh game
of the first set, when Agassi held four break
points.
Sampras tore them back, then went on to a
new level of endeavour, mopping up the first
set and slaughtering Agassi's service game at
the start of the second. Had this been a
fight the doctor would surely have been
called to Agassi's corner.
What he would have found was a fighter of
remarkable spirit and immense talent who had
simply found himself in the wrong place at
the wrong time. Sampras, besieged by doubters
as he walked on to the court, reminded us
that he was ultimately at home.
When it was over he almost shyly raised
the trophy for a record sixth time. Agassi
was still milking the cheers that go
naturally to all crowd pleasers, but his
hurrahs were edged with sadness.
He had done so much to enliven one of the
best of Wimbledons, but he had been treated
almost as an irrelevance to the central
action. Later Sampras confessed: "I just
don't know how I do it." It is always
the sweetest mystery of sport when one
performer rises so far above the rest. But
there are certain common denominators.
There is the passion to be the best and
the discipline to support that ambition.
There is the understanding that gifts which
come at birth are leased rather than owned.
Sampras's implicit understanding of this now
takes him alongside Australian Roy Emerson as
the owner of a record 12 Grand Slams. He has
passed the Iceman Bjorn Borg, the first man
to reach five titles since William Renshaw
won seven in the old, Victorian gas-lit days
of the challenge round.
The record books now lie at his feet,
awaiting his effort in the US Open in
September. But what happened on the Centre
Court went beyond such measurement. It was an
effort of will that, like all the greatest
deeds in sport, stood on its own.
"That's why they call you Pistol,
Pete," cried a voice in the crowd.
Sampras laughed and took a few more bows.
Record books are one thing, knowing you are
the best is another. Everyone knew it
yesterday and finding out was about as boring
as a walk in the Louvre.
BACK
TO TOP
Sampras
asserts supremacy
In becoming Wimbledon's man of the
century, Pete Sampras was near perfection
yesterday, lucky only in the respect that
Andre Agassi was on the same court to provide
the ideal foil for his geometry in motion.
The one disappointment for those who judge
close matches only in terms of marathons
would be that Agassi was unable to take the
contest beyond straight sets. Blame Sampras
for that. After all, the 27-year-old
Californian is a sublime player who has been
called dull by observers who seem to find it
hard to acknowledge brilliance without
showmanship.
Although statistics should never be
allowed to overwhelm the poetry of great
performances, Sampras's majesty is stated in
the clearest terms. He has won the Wimbledon
men's singles title six times, one more than
Bjorn Borg, who accomplished five in a row at
the end of the 1970s, and one fewer than
William Renshaw, whose seven were accumulated
in the good, old-fashioned 1880s.
Yesterday's triumph, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, after
an hour and 55 minutes, also took Sampras
ahead of Borg and Rod Laver (Sampras's hero)
with 12 Grand Slam singles titles, a record
he now shares with Australia's Roy Emerson.
Sampras reached those goals on the day he
was supplanted as the world No 1 by Agassi,
whose advance to the final on top of his
breathtaking performance in winning the
French Open (the only title to have eluded
Sampras) a month ago completed the Las
Vegan's climb from the ignominy of being
ranked as low as No 142 in November 1997.
Sampras hardly spared a thought for the
loss of status, having finished 1998 as the
world No 1 for a record six years
consecutively. He is greedy, but not a
glutton, and did not ask for anything more
than to be able to defeat his great American
rival on the Fourth of July (Agassi at least
deserves the indulgence of tucking into the
biggest of Big Macs).
The Americans were delighted that the joy
of the occasion was extended to Lindsay
Davenport, the women's champion, a
Californian who used to be regarded as the
Statue of Liberty of the lawns.
Given that their own Tim Henman had
departed on Saturday, the crowd could not
have asked for better than a first Wimbledon
final between The Prince and The Bald Eagle.
The bonus was that although dark clouds
hovered, the weather held better than Agassi.
As yesterday's match began to unfold, it
was difficult to imagine that Sampras and
Agassi had voluntarily missed that epic Davis
Cup tie against Britain at Easter, and that
the event had been such a rousing success
without them. So much for all the wailing
over America's lack of players. Tomorrow can
take care of itself.
On show yesterday, in the most famous
Centre Court in the world, were the two
players who have dominated men's tennis in
the 1990s. Sampras's win means that he leads
14-10 in their meetings, including a five-set
victory in the 1993 Wimbledon semi-finals,
when Sampras went on to defeat another
American, Jim Courier, on another Fourth of
July.
Of the many memorable contests between
Sampras and Agassi, their first in a Grand
Slam final, at the 1990 United States Open,
marked the start of Sampras's success in the
majors. "I wasn't really ready for it, I
just got hot for two weeks," he recalls,
while Agassi, who won only nine games in the
three sets, remembers how Sampras
"kicked my butt".
Their last Grand Slam final before
yesterday was at the 1995 US Open. Sampras
won in four sets after gaining the momentum
of a first-set lead by winning what has gone
down in tennis lore as The Point. Agassi was
serving at 4-5, advantage Sampras, and the
pair produced an astonishing 22-stroke rally
of deep, angled groundstrokes, Sampras
converting the set point by countering an
Agassi forehand with a cross-court backhand.
It was the sort of point, it was lamented
at the time, that we could never hope to see
at Wimbledon, where the fast lawns inhibit
the construction seen on the medium-pace
concrete of New York. There was to be no
repeat of that yesterday, but at least
Sampras and Agassi demonstrated how much
excitement can be generated on the grass by
two men with contrasting styles playing at
the top of their game.
Sampras hit 17 aces yesterday, an
indication of how difficult it was for Agassi
to break him. But the passages of action that
made the most lasting impressions where those
involving the duellists in rallies of up to
10 shots of the highest quality: deep, crisp
and low over the net, prompting gasps from
the spectators. The angled groundstrokes were
accompanied by dazzling movement, and the
long-range warfare was leavened by the most
delicate of touch play in mid-court and at
the net.
Sampras saved the first break point of the
match with a backhand pass in the third game.
Agassi then saved one in the sixth game, with
a second serve strong enough to make Sampras
overhit a forehand return. The crux of the
set, and possible the match, came at 3-3,
when Sampras recovered from 0-40 with a
series of five serves which rocked Agassi
back. Agassi double-faulted to 15-40 in the
next game, and Sampras pounced on a second
serve.
Agassi was not able to recover in the
second set after losing serve to love in the
opening game. None the less, the pace of the
exchanges continued to be unrelenting, with
Sampras gaining a psychological edge by
proving willing and able to trade shots from
the back of the court as well as volleying
beautifully and diving, Becker-style to
rescue points, regardless of the risk to
limbs that have creaked more than once this
season.
The crowd, while expressing appreciation
of Sampras's splendid play, never ceased to
encourage Agassi. "Come on, Andre,
you're the No 1" was typical of the
urges from the stands.
Playing like the current No 1 was not
enough to disabuse his predecessor, however,
and Agassi's wonderful shots were eclipsed by
phenomenal ones by the champion.
The crunch came at 5-5 in the third set.
Agassi overhit a forehand beyond the baseline
to 15-40, and Sampras loosened up, ready for
the kill. Agassi saved the first break point
with a backhand volley, but made such a tame
attempt to erase the second with a backhand
half-volley that the ball slumped into the
net.
In the next game, Sampras advanced to
match point with an ace down the middle at
30-30, and finished with the audacity of an
ace off a second serve. "Yeah," he
roared, arms aloft in triumph.
Presentations made, parades of honour
completed (the players jokingly bumped into
each other and pretended to hit each other
with their trophies), Sampras stepped into
the interview room and was as wide-eyed as he
had been on his first trip in there with the
Challenge Cup in 1993. "I'm still
spinning, my mind's racing," he said.
"It will hit me in a couple of weeks,
I'm sure."
BACK
TO TOP
Sampras
wins 6th Wimbledon title
New York Times
WIMBLEDON, England -- Pete Sampras waved
his racquet like Merlin's wand and, in one
brash swoop, made Andre Agassi disappear, and
made history twice over, in an all-American
finale Sunday on Center Court at Wimbledon.
Contrary to Agassi's prediction that this
revival of a long-dormant rivalry between the
top two talents of this generation had the
makings of a marathon, Sampras had other
ideas.
Less than two hours after another
Californian, Lindsay Davenport, won her first
Wimbledon title and closed out the Wimbledon
career of the seven-time champion Steffi
Graf, Sampras completed an American sweep by
humbling Agassi, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5. The last time
two Americans took both Wimbledon singles
titles was 1984, when John McEnroe and
Martina Navratilova won.
Sampras, the two-time defending champion,
passed Bjorn Borg, who won five Wimbledon
titles, to become the only man in this
century to accumulate six Wimbledon
championships. And today's bravura outing
earned Sampras his 12th Grand Slam singles
crown, matching the Australian Roy Emerson's
record.
Sampras, the 27-year-old classicist whose
game on grass has evolved to a level that
admits no peers, dominated on a gray
afternoon when the men's and women's finals
shared the sport's most storied court for the
first time since weather forced a similar
pileup in 1989.
Perfection was Sampras's goal and,
according to the top-ranked Agassi, he
attained it. Ruthlessly.
"He walked on water today," said
the 29-year-old Agassi, the 1992 Wimbledon
winner, who was coming off a rejuvenating
victory at last month's French Open, where he
completed his Grand Slam collection, becoming
the fifth man in history to have won all four
events.
Agassi had also hoped to become the first
man since Borg in 1980 to collect the Roland
Garros and Wimbledon titles in the same year.
Instead it was Sampras -- packing the same
eviscerating punch as a human buzz saw, as
Agassi saw it -- who did the record-breaking.
In addition to four titles at the United
States Open, where he made his Grand Slam
breakthrough in 1990 at age 19 to become its
youngest champion, and two more at the
Australian Open, in 1994 and 1997, Sampras
has now compiled a perfect 6-for-6 record in
finals at Wimbledon, the Grand Slam he was
groomed to win by his first coach, Pete
Fischer. He has won his six Wimbledon titles
in seven years.
"Sometimes I feel like I was born to
win here, I really do, and today was one of
those days," said Sampras, 46-1 at
Wimbledon in the last seven years. "In
the middle of the second set, I was on fire,
you know, from all aspects of my game. From
serving to my ground strokes, I was playing
in the zone."
"It was as well as I could play,
plain and simple," said Sampras, who has
turned the art of winning Wimbledon into a
simple science. "It's all about my
second serve and my return; that's it, that's
grass-court tennis."
Sampras -- now ranked third despite his
successful title defense -- broke Agassi's
serve three times and tormented him with
powerful second serves.
"Every time it was 30-30, if he
didn't hit an ace on the first serve, he was
hitting his second serve 109, 111, sometimes
119, 122," Agassi said. "I think he
hit one second serve the whole match that was
only 100 miles an hour."
Sampras, who switched to a one-handed
backhand at Fischer's behest, the better to
create a bolder, modern-day version of his
stylistic role model, Rod Laver, continued to
stake his claim to being remembered as the
greatest player to grace the game in this or
any generation. The French Open is the only
missing link in his portfolio.
"I'm still spinning a little
bit," said Sampras, who had not known
what to expect when he took to Center Court
against the player he had described as the
hottest on the men's circuit. "I don't
know how I do it, I really don't, to be
honest with you.
"But this is the place to do it. I
mean, against Andre on the Fourth of July was
different than playing anyone else I've
played through my career. Andre brings out
the best in me; there's no question that he
elevates my game to a level that's
phenomenal."
The game that stood out as a turning point
in the minds of both players was the seventh
game of the opening set. Sampras was serving
at 3-3 and, after falling into a 0-40 chasm,
seemed in danger of handing the getaway keys
to Agassi, one of the most feared
front-runners in the game. But Sampras
responded by pounding out a succession of
service "bombs," said Agassi, which
not only saved the game, but also rattled the
Las Vegan's focus so badly that he
immediately surrendered his next service game
to trail by 3-5. Agassi's double fault gave
Sampras the break point he needed to put
himself in position to serve out the set.
"He's well aware of the fact that one
or two huge efforts with a few big shots can
turn a whole match around," Agassi said.
"He knows he can make some great things
happen in the matter of a minute and a half.
He can turn an entire match around."
Sampras turned the opening set around
right there, served it out and immediately
hobbled Agassi in the first game of the
second set by breaking him there. A
129-m.p.h. service winner gave Sampras a
two-sets-to-none lead, and even though Agassi
began to send returns across the net like
comets in the third set, Sampras refused to
lose his serve.
Instead, Agassi, after saving two break
points at 15-40 in the seventh game but
getting into the same trouble in the 11th
game, plopped a backhand into the net to
trail by 5-6 and enable Sampras to serve for
the title. An ace took Sampras to match
point. He completed his mission with his 17th
and final ace.
"It's all instinct at that
point," Sampras said. "I went for
it, went up the middle, and the next thing I
knew I was holding the cup."
BACK TO TOP
Good
tennis tells simple story for Sampras, Davenport
By Mike Lurie, CNNSI
The winners were two Americans who held
the same distinction, unique to their shared
1999 Wimbledon experience. Of the contenders
for the singles titles, Pete Sampras and
Lindsay Davenport were easily the most
taken-for-granted.
So many of their opponents made for better
copy.
That has always been the rap on Sampras,
anyway, if you could call it that. Too
well-behaved. Too boring. So overly concerned
about mastering his craft that he offers no
corollary behavior to hype his sport.
Davenport, meanwhile, doesn't really care
to be celebrated. But unlike some athletes
who don't like attention, she doesn't resent
anyone for noticing when her play is too good
for anyone to ignore.
The joke is on the tennis world after the
nonchalant way it watched Sampras and
Davenport roll through Wimbledon.
Andre Agassi is too smart to dismiss what
Sampras can do on grass. Steffi Graf is too
respectful not to be concerned about
Davenport's improved game. But one twist
since the Agassi-Graf titles at the French
Open four weeks ago is how their Roland
Garros performances pushed Sampras and
Davenport further into the background.
YET NOW THAT DAVENPORT has won her second
Grand Slam title in less than 10 months, she
joins the other three Wimbledon singles
finalists as someone worthy of all-time
status.
It's still early to put her in the same
light as Graf, Agassi and Sampras. But
because Davenport has won Grand Slam events
on two surfaces, a career Slam seems
reachable. Agassi achieved one by winning the
French Open for the first time last month.
The past two years, Davenport has reached
the semifinals of the Australian Open --
played on a hard surface like that of the
U.S. Open, which Davenport won in 1998 over
Martina Hingis. And the clay of Roland Garros
does not exasperate her the way it does
Sampras. She was a French Open semifinalist
last year.
The one surface that always had confounded
her -- a surface she "hated" -- was
the very one on which she stood so proudly
Sunday, hoisting the Wimbledon championship
plate.
"At the U.S. Open, I beat Martina
Hingis, who was the No. 1 at the time, and
here I beat Graf and (defending champion Jana
Novotna), and those are probably the two best
grass-courters we have," Davenport said
Sunday. "No one can say, 'Lindsay had an
easy draw, she just won it.' I beat the best,
and that's the most special way."
FOR SAMPRAS, A WIMBLEDON TITLE almost
seems a hum-drum affair. He won his sixth in
singles there Sunday.
Now he has tied Roy Emerson for career
Grand Slam titles, with 12. Sampras has a
strong sense for the game's history, and
passing Emerson is his next mission.
That might happen in New York in
September, or next winter in Australia. But,
of course, the rub for Sampras is Paris. The
clay surface continues to befuddle the man
who is arguably the best of all-time.
When might that change? Sampras will turn
28 on Aug. 12. He still has time to end his
French Open jinx.
It's not as if he has embarrassed himself
there. Three years ago, Yevgeny Kafelnikov
was the only player who stood between Sampras
and the final. But he hasn't come close
since.
Sampras remains eight Grand Slam titles
ahead of Agassi. But Agassi sure has known
how to space his out. Four Slams, one in each
place.
Sampras simply owns Wimbledon.
"It's a little overwhelming to have
won the way I've won, to be honest. I don't
know how I do it, I really don't, to be
honest," Sampras said. "It's going
to take time for this to sink in."
As he beat Agassi in three sets, Sampras
realized his game could not be any better
than it was Sunday.
The possibility of a career Grand Slam
can't be dismissed. Anyone who appreciates
drama would root for Sampras to wait until
Paris next year to break Emerson's record.
AND ANYONE WHO APPRECIATES symmetry would
pull for Davenport to win Paris at the same
time.
There is no small degree of soap opera
around tennis players these days, but
Davenport and Sampras offer little in that
regard. More stories will come from the
controversial players -- stories about wacky
parents, or the nearly disrespectful ways
guys such as Kafelnikov and Marcelo Rios have
handled their temporary custody of the No. 1
ranking.
Inevitably, those stories will push
Sampras and Davenport into the background.
Inevitably, the quality of their tennis will
spring them back into prominence.
BACK
TO TOP
Pete
Sampras in command.
Superman Sampras makes history
By Phil Casey, PA Sport
Pete Sampras raised the famous gold
Wimbledon trophy to his lips, kissed it
lovingly and showed it to all corners of the
Centre Court. And as the world's
photographers jostled for the best angle, you
couldn't help feeling it was quite simply the
picture of perfection.
It wasn't just that Sampras had won his
sixth Wimbledon singles title against
countryman Andre Agassi in straight sets on
of all days, American Independence Day, that
made it so perfect.
It wasn't that Sampras had at last
equalled Roy Emerson's record of 12 Grand
Slam singles titles - a feat he is now likely
to eclipse and which will perhaps never be
bettered.
It was the fact that never before on
Centre Court, perhaps never before on any
court, has a man played more complete tennis.
"In the middle of the second set I
was on fire. I was in the zone. I couldn't
have played any better," was Sampras's
own verdict after a 6-3 6-4 7-5 victory which
was as devastating as it was historic.
Only William Renshaw with seven victories
has now won the men's singles title here more
times than Sampras - and Renshaw reigned in
the 1880s when the champion played only one
match against purely domestic competition and
when the prize was nothing more exciting than
a cucumber sandwich.
Of course you can never compare players of
different eras with any great precision.
Equipment technology has changed, training
methods have been refined.
But no-one could have lived with Sampras,
the tennis Superman. Not Hoad or Laver, not
McEnroe or Connors, not Borg or Lendl.
And certainly not Agassi, even though the
flamboyant Las Vegan was at the top of his
game and on a quest to become the first man
since Borg to win the French and Wimbledon in
the same year.
Sampras had simply breezed through this
Wimbledon, much of the time hardly noticed as
SW19 became obsessed with the retirement of
Boris Becker, the renaissance of Agassi, the
emergence of teenage stars Jelena Dokic and
Alexandra Stevenson and the mania surrounding
Tim Henman. He had barely been troubled.
But if Sampras had been operating on
merely the first floor of his towering game
for much of an otherwise disappointing year
then he moved into the attic.
It was swaying, stooping, stupefying
Sampras - forehand heavy and deep, backhand
rapier-like, smash supreme and volley as
precise and deft as a Swiss watchmaker.
And then there was that service -
wonderfully smooth, uncomplicated but perhaps
the most savage stroke in tennis.
Time after time when Agassi pushed open
the door of that phenomenal service Sampras
slammed it shut with a delivery of awesome
dimensions.
Never in a final of such magnitude can
there have been a more devastating
declaration of intent than in the seventh and
eighth games of the first set.
With the Sampras service in dire danger at
love-40 and being attacked by the best return
in the world, Sampras came up with three
brilliant deliveries and another of his 17
aces to wriggle out of trouble.
It was somehow inevitable that the next
game produced an Agassi double fault and an
array of supreme groundstrokes from Sampras
for the champion to take a 5-3 lead and serve
out the set.
As sea-changes go this was of Atlantic
proportions and even Agassi was later to
admit that Sampras was "walking on
water".
When the Agassi service was broken in the
first game of the second set the crowd tried
to lift the Las Vegan. "Come on, you're
number one in the world," shouted one
spectator. And so he is in the new rankings
announced tomorrow, but what do computers
know about excellence and courage and sheer
talent?
What would a mere machine make of the
crashing tumble Sampras took in the fourth
game, grazing his elbow and shaking him
physically, only to get up and serve two aces
in excess of 120mph to win the game?
That takes mental toughness of the highest
order and you were reminded of the day a
hugely-focused Sampras had beaten Jim Courier
back in 1993 - the afternoon critics had
dubbed the final "Bored on the Fourth of
July".
And, it's true, Sampras's perfection
robbed the 99 version of a truly epic final.
But this was boring only in the way that
watching Maurice Green become the fastest man
in the world was boring or witnessing Bob
Beamon leap out of the long jump pit was a
chore.
The third set promised a fleeting Agassi
renaissance as he pushed the Sampras service
with increasingly ferocious returns. The
crowd willed him to find the invention and
imagination to prolong the contest, but still
he could not muster even a single break
point, his exasperation evident in a
desperate cry of frustration in the 10th
game.
The pressure on the bald Las Vegan, with
earring dangling and hopes fading, was
mounting game by game and the crucial break
came in the 11th when an Agassi double fault
and unforced errors on both backhand and
forehand let Sampras in for the kill.
And so to the final game, on the second
point of which Sampras served a 113mph boomer
and let out a scream of "Come on" -
his only concession to emotion throughout the
one hour and 54 minutes the match lasted.
At 30-30 Sampras went tumbling again as he
dived spectacularly at the net and the elbow
he had grazed earlier spouted blood and an
ugly red weal.
So what happened next? You've got it. He
jumped up to serve two aces, one at 127mph
and the other at 110, to clinch the title. A
champion's performance from the champion of
champions.
Then Sampras turned to his coach Paul
Annacone and his great pal Tom Gullikson up
in the players' box, punched the air with
both fists and uttered a great roar of
"Yessss".
And as he sat in his courtside chair while
the presentation ceremony was being prepared
he looked to each corner of the Centre Court,
the court which Boris Becker earlier in the
tournament had admitted was "Pete's
home", to savour the moment.
"Is that why they call you Pistol
Pete," a cry came from deep within the
court. And, considering the 'bullets' which
had ricocheted around Centre Court all
afternoon the thought that Sampras was the
fastest gun in town was entirely appropriate.
Yet, perhaps the most revealing moments of
all came as the pair took simultaneous laps
of honour, Sampras taking the anti-clockwise
route, Agassi the reverse, round Centre
Court.
For while the crowd politely saluted the
champion, Agassi received a rousing ovation
of true warmth and affection.
Perhaps that is the price which has to be
paid for perfection over personality.
As the two passed each other, Agassi aimed
a playful blow at Sampras as if to strike him
on the head with his silver salver.
It was the only way he would have got his
hands on that gold trophy.
© PA Sporting Life
BACK TO TOP
Sampras
the Best Ever? A Grand Thought
By NEIL AMDUR, NY TIMES
Pete Sampras's straight-sets victory over
Andre Agassi for his sixth Wimbledon singles
title elevated him into new territory on the
all-time appreciation list of tennis greats.
Sampras's 12th career Grand Slam title
tied him with Roy Emerson for major singles
championships. On another level, the
dominance that he displayed during Sunday's
final, against arguably the best returner in
the game, resurrected the question: Is
Sampras the best male tennis player ever?
"He's a real champion out of the old
school," said Jack Kramer, who likens
Sampras to Ellsworth Vines, Kramer's role
model of the 1930's, and Don Budge. "On
grass, you'd have to put him up there with
Vines and Budge."
Sampras's serve is easily the most
formidable weapon on the men's tour. It was a
stroke designed by his first coach, Pete
Fischer, to control a match.
"If Pete is serving well,"
Fischer once observed, "it doesn't make
any difference who the opponent is. It's
irrelevant."
That is certainly the case at Wimbledon,
where even Sampras's second serve is almost
unreturnable. "The worse the grass
gets," Kramer said after watching
Sampras march through this year's field,
"the better it is for Pete."
The keys to Sampras's serve -- the height
of his elbow in the back stretch position,
the contact at full extension, the speed of
the racquet head through the contact zone --
were preached by Fischer. So was the ability
to disguise the toss -- leaving open the
question of whether the serve would be a flat
bullet down the middle or spun wide.
Ten years ago, George Lott was asked to
select his all-time top male players. Lott,
who had won more than 40 national and
international titles but lost the 1931 men's
singles final at the national championship to
Vines in four sets, devised a ranking system
based on 10 categories -- first serve, second
serve, forehand, backhand, volley, mental
toughness, baseline play, overhead,
anticipation and quickness, and tennis brain.
His No. 1 player at the time, with 93 out
of a possible 100 points, was John McEnroe.
Bill Tilden, whom Lott had long considered
the No. 1 player, was second at 87, with
Vines third (86) and Rod Laver fourth (85).
Sampras clearly would rate 10 points for
his first serve, second serve, forehand and
overhead. His backhand, volley and tennis
brain are nines; so is his mental toughness
in big matches. If his baseline play,
anticipation and agility are eights, he would
finish with 92 points, one point behind
McEnroe. If you rank Sampras's volley a 10
(McEnroe's was a 9), they would be tied.
Lott, who died in 1991, had played 9 of
the 20 players on his list. Sampras was too
new to the game at the time Lott's list was
published in World Tennis magazine.
Could Sampras have beaten Laver or Bjorn
Borg on clay? Probably not. Could he have
held his own with Vines, Tilden, Kramer,
Budge or Jimmy Connors on hard courts?
"After Pete won the U.S. Open for the
first time," Budge recalled yesterday,
"I saw him in Philadelphia that winter
and said, 'You're gonna be the next guy to
win the Grand Slam.' "
Sampras has yet to duplicate the feat of
Budge (1938) and Laver (1962 and 1969) by
winning the true Grand Slam -- the
Australian, French, Wimbledon and United
States championships in a single year.
Budge said Sampras's ground strokes
"are not yet good" to win on the
slower clay in Paris and is surprised that
Sampras hasn't set his career goals higher.
"Why wouldn't he try to win all four
-- the legitimate Grand Slam?" Budge
said from his home in Dingman's Ferry, Pa.
Several years ago, Fischer visited Budge
in Pennsylvania to find out whether the
backhand Fischer had taught Sampras was the
classic Budge backhand. After Budge showed
him his grip and stroke, Fischer acknowledged
that Sampras's shot was more wristy.
"Pete can make the best shot of the
day," Budge said of Sampras's backhand.
"My backhand was firm, not as
wristy."
Still, Budge hopes Sampras can look beyond
simply breaking the tie with Emerson by
winning the United States Open later this
summer and set his goal on winning the Grand
Slam.
"Why not?" Budge said. "If
he wants to be remembered as he should be and
would be, he should go for it."
BACK
TO TOP
|
