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Grand Slam No. 14:
US Open, 2002
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Headline news and press conference
(Part 2)
Now He Can
Determine the Going Rate
By Diane Pucin, LA Times
NEW YORK -- From the moment he stood in the tunnel before the
U.S. Open final and lined up behind Andre Agassi with a big grin
on his face, until the moment he hit a final, winning volley,
when he was limp, drained of energy and emotion, able only to
hold on to Agassi in grateful appreciation, Pete Sampras owned
this day.
"This takes the cake," Sampras said.
Sampras has never been one for padding his sentences with extra
emotion but this time the paucity of words came from utter physical
and emotional exhaustion.
Sampras beat Andre Agassi, 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, to win his fifth
U.S. Open and 14th Grand Slam title. He was given a moment or
two to enjoy, then had to think out loud about his future.
"To beat a rival like Andre in a major tournament at the
U.S. Open, a storybook ending, it might be nice to stop,"
Sampras said.
"I still want to compete, you know? I still love to play.
Right now it's really hard to talk about. My head's spinning.
The next couple of months I'll reflect on it and see where I'm
at."
This sounds like a man who might now be ready to retire, on his
own terms, in his own way. This was a man who needed an intravenous
boost of fluids after the match, who spoke in the wearied tone
of a man who had been pushed to his physical limits. Because of
rain, Sampras had played five matches in seven days, all of them
filled with huge emotional as well as physical investment, and
now Sampras had nothing left.
This was a privileged day, for the competitors, for the fans,
for all in the stadium who were able to watch two of America's
greatest tennis champions play for the fifth time in a Grand Slam
final.
Agassi was seeded No. 6, Sampras No. 17. Whoever won was going
to be the oldest Open champion since 1970, when Ken Rosewall,
35, won.
The day began with an emotional singing of "America"
by Art Garfunkel and his son, James, a haunting version of quivering
high notes sung while the tattered flag that survived the World
Trade Center attacks blew strongly in the wind above Arthur Ashe
Stadium.
Sampras and Agassi stood together again, two men who have grown
up together as opposites and rivals who appreciate having each
other.
These two men began their Grand Slam rivalry when they were children,
at the 1990 U.S. Open.
Sampras was 19, scrawny and loose-limbed and oblivious to his
own great talent and the history he was starting to make. Agassi
was 20, as interested in being trendy and hip and having cool
clothes and long hair as he was to making a tennis legacy.
They played in the final. Sampras won, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2, a thorough
thumping. Afterward Agassi said that Sampras had served too well,
everything on the lines and 120 mph.
It was that way Sunday. Sampras had 33 aces. Everything on the
lines, 120 mph, Agassi lunging and punching.
This was so unexpected from Sampras. He was a woebegone figure
two months ago at Wimbledon, a second-round loser in another tournament
he had owned, an old-looking man with his head buried in a towel
out on Court 2, an insulting place in Sampras' mind for a champion
to have been exiled.
And more than ever, Sampras heard the sad questions.
Why didn't he walk off the stage, leave it to the youngsters?
Why didn't he understand that his moment of triumph, the 2000
Wimbledon when he broke the record, won his 13th major and hugged
his father Gus--who had never celebrated a victory at a Grand
Slam event with his son--could not be topped and should not have
been tarnished with all the losses that followed?
It was time, wasn't it? Thanks for the effort and historical
greatness, Pete, and go away. Sampras heard this. He kept quiet
about it, but he heard it.
"The one thing I promised myself, even though I was struggling
and hearing this and that, was I want to stop on my own terms,"
Sampras said. "I deserve to stop on my own terms. I've done
too much in the game to hear the negative things and start believing
it."
And Sampras didn't say "I told you so," even though
he could have.
If he plays again next year, if he says he wants to win an eighth
Wimbledon or feels motivated to defend his Open title, then that's
what he should do.
If the scene at the net in the dusk Sunday evening--hugging Agassi,
his foil, his rival, the man he calls "the best I ever played,
no disrespect to anybody else"--if this was Sampras' final
Grand Slam moment, then it was the best. By the best.
Sampras Makes a Lasting
Impact
By Lisa Dillman, LA Times
NEW YORK -- His journey from zero to 13 was nothing compared
to the march from 13 to 14. Almost yearly, Pete Sampras marked
off majors, sometimes winning two in the same season.
But the man who was as reliable as a machine started to stall
after his record-setting 13th Grand Slam championship at Wimbledon
in 2000. And as his tournament title drought hit 33, his viability
on the circuit was questioned by many, including his peers, who
circled his aura like vultures.
So much of Sampras' career has traded on a rare ability to astound,
so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that he had it in him
to do it one more time.
He flicked his magic racket again Sunday, maybe for the last
time, recording a most improbable result, winning the U.S. Open
at age 31 to capture his 14th Grand Slam singles title.
That the result came against his greatest rival, Andre Agassi,
put the championship in a special stratosphere. The 17th-seeded
Sampras served the way he did in his prime for two sets, then
held on with gritty determination, defeating No. 6 Agassi, 6-3,
6-4, 5-7, 6-4, in 2 hours 54 minutes, hitting 33 aces.
Flashes of light dotted Arthur Ashe Stadium as Sampras tossed
the ball in the air to serve on his first match point, at 5-4,
40-0. Agassi saved it with a forehand passing shot, and the cameras
were poised again, lights flashing to capture the winning image.
And Sampras supplied it, hitting a winning backhand volley, ending
his 26-month run without a title. He thrust his arms in the air
and shared a warm embrace with Agassi at the net, and later made
the long climb into the stands to hug his wife, actress Bridgette
Wilson. It was somewhat reminiscent of his journey up the stairs
at Wimbledon when he found his parents after the record-setting
moment.
So similar, and so different.
"This one might take the cake," Sampras said. "I
never thought anything would surpass what happened at Wimbledon
a couple of years ago. But the way I've been going this year,
to kind of come through this and play the way I did today, it
was awesome."
But were the cameras capturing the image of Sampras for the last
time? His close friend Paul Annacone, who reunited with Sampras
this summer as his coach, spoke positively about the future.
Then Sampras came into the interview room. After he was done
talking, the question was: Will he stay or will he go?
That has been out there, but Sampras put it out there himself
Sunday. "Well, I'm gonna have to weigh it up in the next
months to see where I'm at," said Sampras, who appeared in
his third consecutive Open final. "I still want to play.
I love to play. But to beat a rival like Andre in a major tournament
at the U.S. Open, a storybook ending, it might be nice to stop.
... You know, see where I'm at in a couple of months, where my
heart's at and my mind. Right now, it's really hard to talk about.
My head's spinning. But I'm sure the next couple of weeks I'll
reflect on it and kind of see where I'm at in a few months time."
The flip side of staying is the idea of going out on top. In
a sense, Sampras' victory at the Open—his fifth, which tied
Jimmy Connors—is similar to Jack Nicklaus' Masters victory
in 1986, after almost six years without a win in a major. Nicklaus,
too, used negative comments to fuel his desire, putting articles
on his refrigerator.
Sampras had Greg Rusedski for that. "He's got his own issues,"
Sampras said of the British player, who had criticized him at
the Open. "His issues have issues."
The vulnerability of Sampras made him a sentimental favorite,
which is saying something with the 32-year-old Agassi on the same
court. Agassi, playing in his first Grand Slam final since winning
the Australian Open in 2001, is 1-4 against Sampras in Grand Slam
finals.
"Well, I think a lot of people get support toward the end
of their career," Agassi said. "The difference is they
thought I'd been at the end of mine for eight years now."
Agassi started slowly and looked slightly sluggish, perhaps a
product of a difficult semifinal victory Saturday against Lleyton
Hewitt of Australia. But he showed his mettle and kept plugging
away. Eventually Sampras' serve returned to earth, losing some
speed, and Agassi found his return range.
"I was having a hard time getting on to it and getting off
the mark and making any sort of impact at all," Agassi said.
"I think he sensed that, and I was allowing him to play pretty
loose in his return games."
Agassi quite conceivably could have pushed the match into a fifth
set. He had two break points against Sampras in the fourth game
of the fourth set, a 22-point game that had seven deuces. Sampras
held on, and later in the set, the momentum flipped one more time
in about a five-minute span.
Sampras broke Agassi in the ninth game on his fourth break-point
chance, hitting a huge forehand service return, drawing a forehand
into the net from Agassi. Sampras served it out, calling the moment
"eerie."
Whatever happens in his future, he will always have New York,
which is where it all started with his first Grand Slam title
in 1990, against Agassi, and where it may have ended with a win
against Agassi, completing the circle.
"A little destiny, sure. It might have went my way in this
event to play Andre in the final, two Americans that have meant
a lot to the game in the U.S.," Sampras said. "Yeah,
it was a fitting way to end it."
Sampras Beats Agassi for
US Open Championship
By Bob Luder, The Kansas City Star
NEW YORK - Two years, one month, 30 days.
That was how long it had been since Pete Sampras, the man with
more Grand Slam singles titles than any man in tennis history,
had won anything on a tennis court. Not just a major tournament,
mind you. Anything.
With his age creeping into that tennis-geezer decade of the 30s
and being in the midst of his worst year as a professional --
a first-round loss at the French Open, a second-round defeat at
Wimbledon to some guy named George Bastl (George Bastl?) -- there
were plenty of skeptics wondering whether Sampras could muster
what it would take to win again.
But, while a champion's legs might grow a step slower, the joints
a bit stiffer, a champion's heart never dies. Not while it's still
ticking.
If there was one thing Sampras proved once and for all in his
6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Andre Agassi on Sunday in the
U.S. Open final, it was that.
The big serve that had won Sampras a record 13 Grand Slam tournament
titles won Sampras the first two sets as he kept Agassi on his
heels.
But, once he grew fatigued and let the third set slip away to
Agassi, his lifelong archrival, it was his heart and guts that
carried him to Grand Slam tournament No. 14 and his fifth U.S.
Open title, tying him with Jimmy Connors for the most in the open
era.
"This one might take the cake," Sampras said repeatedly
when asked to size up this major victory with his others. "I
never thought anything would surpass winning Wimbledon in 2000.
But, to come through all the adversity, all the negative things
people were saying, and play the way I played today was awesome."
It truly was an awesome two weeks for Sampras, 31. He was seeded
17th here, the lowest he'd been seeded since the late 1980s, when
he was an up-and-coming teen-ager. He struggled mightily in a
five-set thriller over hard-serving Greg Rusedski in the third
round and had to go four sets in the next round to upset the third
seed, Tommy Haas.
But, just as persistent rain during the middle of the tournament
started causing a stack-up of Sampras' matches, he seemed to find
his stride, knocking off both American upstart Andy Roddick (quarterfinals)
and Sjeng Schalken (semis) in straight sets.
Against Agassi, Sampras came out firing 130-mph aces and over
the first two sets looked as dominant as he was during the record
six straight years he served as the world's No. 1-ranked player.
"I had a good warmup, and my serve was really clicking today,"
Sampras said. "I was hitting it accurate with a lot of speed,
mixing it up well."
Sampras also tried to be aggressive on Agassi's serve and, finally,
in the eighth game of the first set, two uncharacteristic Agassi
errors and a Sampras forehand winner led to the first break of
Agassi's serve and allowed Sampras to serve out the first set.
Two more breaks of Agassi's serve handed Sampras a quick 5-2
lead in the second set, and it looked as if the highly anticipated
match between these tennis heavyweights would end too early for
the full-capacity crowd of 25,210.
"I was having a hard time getting onto his serve, getting
off the mark," said Agassi, who is now 0-3 against Sampras
in U.S. Open finals. "That was allowing him to get loose
on his return games.
"He was solidly better than me in the first two sets."
But Agassi didn't win seven Grand Slam tournaments of his own
by giving up, and he began to hone in on Sampras just as fatigue
began seeping into Sampras' legs in the third set. Sampras served
his way out of two break points in the sixth game, but when he
netted a forehand volley down break point at 5-6, Agassi had the
third set and new life.
"I was able to get my nose in front in the third,"
Agassi said. "Then, I had my chances in the fourth set, but
when I started feeling good about things, he stepped up his game
even more."
Sampras had to dig deep to hold serve on two occasions in the
fourth, surviving seven deuces and winning the fourth game of
the set on the 20th point and saving a break point in the eighth
game.
When he broke Agassi after three deuces for a 5-4 lead, all he
had to do was pull out one more service game to win.
"I was feeling pretty tired in the third," Sampras
said. "My legs were feeling it. I'd played a lot of matches.
(Agassi) turned it up a little on his returns, made me work even
harder.
"I hung in as well as I could and got the job done."
At the news conference nearly two hours after Sampras held the
championship trophy above his head, after Sampras had time to
let the magnitude of the accomplishment sink in, he was asked
whether this match marked the end of Sampras-Agassi heavyweight
bouts in Grand Slam finals.
"It's hard to say what the future is going to hold for us,"
he said. "You know, to meet in major finals... Players are
too good today. This could be it for us.
"But, maybe next year, we'll do it again."
Sampras-Agassi Open Final
— A Bookend for a Generation
By John Feinstein, AOL
Every once in a great while, sport rises above itself. Something
happens that is so sweet, so heartwarming, so RIGHT, that we are
reminded why we care about these games in the first place.
Men's tennis has been bashed and beaten on -- deservedly so --
for a while now. Nothing that happened during the just-ended U.S.
Open would indicate that Lleyton Hewitt, even on his best behavior,
is likely to be an appealing champion anytime soon or that Andy
Roddick is a lock to become the champion people fervently wish
him to be.
But this past weekend, none of that mattered. Not since 1991,
when Jimmy Connors made his miraculous run to the semifinals at
the age of 39, has there been a more appealing or dramatic tennis
storyline than the one written by Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi
on a gorgeous late summer weekend in New York.
Let's be clear on this: both men are part of this story because
they are now linked in tennis history much as Borg and McEnroe,
Evert and Navratilova and Laver and Rosewall are. Someday the
Williams sisters will be in that equation too but that is another
story for another day.
Certainly Sunday belonged first and foremost to Sampras, in part
for his play; in part for his grit at the finish; in part for
the look on his face after he had put away the final backhand
volley which gave him his 14th major championship.
But Agassi was a part of it too. His victory over Hewitt on Saturday
not only ensured that the Open would have a feel-good winner but
it created an aura around the final that can only occur when two
men who respect one another and understand one another the way
these two do find themselves on the court together.
They have been sharing courts with one another since they were
juniors -- Agassi, 20 months older, always ahead of Sampras, who
didn't really bloom as a teenage player until he gave up his two-handed
backhand.
This was the 34th time they had met as professionals, the third
time in an Open final. That first meeting in New York, 12 years
ago, was Sampras' coming out party as a great player.
He had started that year ranked 61st in the world, forced to
play in qualifying just to get into the tournament in Sydney which
served as the warmup for the Australian Open.
Agassi was already a multimillionaire at that point, ranked third
in the world, with an entourage that would fill a city block.
Sampras had no entourage. When he went out on his first date that
year, his pal Jim Courier had to show him how to tie a tie.
But they ended up in the Open final that September, each seeking
his first major title. The difference was Agassi's experience.
He had played the French Open final earlier that year and had
been in the semis of five majors by then.
Sampras had never been past the fourth round in a major when
he arrived in New York, a few weeks after his 19th birthday. But
he beat Ivan Lendl in five sets in the quarterfinals, ending Lendl's
amazing string of eight straight Open finals. Then he beat John
McEnroe in the semis with the crowd screaming for McEnroe to make
one last stand as an Open champion.
And then, on a Sunday evening not unlike this past one, he dismantled
a stunned Agassi in straight sets, losing a total of nine games.
That afternoon, too nervous to watch the match on television,
Sampras' parents went out for a drive to kill time, then wandered
through a shopping mall in suburban Los Angeles. They happened
to walk past an electronics store and, out of the corner of their
eyes, they could see an awards ceremony taking place on a bank
of TVs in the store window.
Sam Sampras looked a his watch and his heart sank. The match
had started barely more than 90 minutes earlier and already his
son had lost. The Sampras' stopped, forcing themselves to look
in the window and saw their son kissing the U.S. Open trophy.
Agassi, too young at the time to understand grace in defeat,
had trouble admitting he had been whipped by an ascendant star.
He wondered if perhaps Sampras had been lucky: "I'd like
to take him back to Vegas with me right now and turn him loose
with the kind of luck he's been having lately," was one comment.
And then this: "Let's not get carried away here. He did it
once. Let's see where he goes from here."
We know now where Sampras went from there: 14 majors -- including
seven Wimbledons; five U.S. Opens and two Australians -- two more
than any man in history.
Agassi, after his lurching beginnings under the white heat of
major finals -- he lost his first three -- became a great champion
himself: seven majors in all, including at least one win in all
four of them, the one hole (French Open) on Sampras' extraordinary
resume.
They never became close friends, because great rivals rarely
do that. Plus, they were so different in so many ways: Agassi
seemingly born to the spotlight; Sampras cringing under it.
Agassi always wearing his emotions where everyone could see them;
Sampras fighting to hide them, even when his coach Tim Gullikson
was dying and he lost it completely during an Australian Open
quarterfinal against Courier.
Sampras was embarrassed by his tears; Agassi would have talked
into the night in a similar situation knowing there was no shame
in loving someone the way Sampras loved Gullikson.
Now, both have reached the twilight, albeit in very different
ways. Agassi has turned the latter part of his career into something
of a victory tour, getting himself into the best shape of his
life, using the tranquility he has found in his marriage to Steffi
Graf and the arrival of his infant son, as a springboard to late
success.
Sampras has faded far more quietly, breaking the all-time record
for major titles two years ago at Wimbledon, then fighting his
game and his confidence and himself during a two-year drought
without any tournament victory, much less one that really mattered.
When he lost at Wimbledon this summer, on an outside court to
a qualifier; lost at the place where he was virtually unbeatable
for eight years: seven titles, 53-1 match record; it did seem
as if the end was near. His ranking was dropping like a stone.
The aura was clearly gone. And then, for one of the few times
in his life, Sampras got genuinely angry.
He got angry with those in the media who said he was done, that
he should just walk away before he became Willie Mays on a tennis
court. He got angry with himself for not working harder, for not
accepting the fact that what worked at 21 didn't work at 31.
And finally, last week, he got really angry when Greg Rusedski,
a player who has been in exactly ZERO Grand Slam finals, wrote
him off as washed up after Sampras had survived a five-set match
with him in the third round.
"I lost more than Pete won," Rusedski said, almost
conjuring memories of the 20-year-old Agassi. "I don't really
see him going very much farther here."
That comment may have given Sampras just enough impetus to get
past third-seeded Tommy Haas 24 hours later when he should have
been too sore and too weary to come back against a top player
and win again. It may have helped carry him past Roddick, in a
one-sided quarterfinal that looked like a remedial session between
a teacher and a pupil with lots to learn.
It was not though, going to get him past Agassi, who understands
just as clearly as Sampras that the window on his days as a major
champion is rapidly closing. What got him by Agassi was that remarkable
serve and a craving to win one more time on one of tennis' grand
stages. Once, Agassi would have tanked after going down two sets.
But not anymore. He was a threat to win the match until the final
point.
When they came to net after the final point, the difference in
the two men 12 years after their first Open final was never more
apparent. Agassi's shoulder-length, multihued hair is long gone,
replaced by a clean-shaven head. Sampras' curly black hair is
patchy now and his youthful face is rounder, the face of a man
about to become a father, not the face of a teenage boy.
But it went farther than that. The hug was genuine, the respect
quite real. Agassi could not have been more gracious in defeat.
The awkward boys who were just saying hello to the tennis world
in 1990 had clearly become men 12 years later.
If this was, in fact, their farewell, there's a sadness in that.
But there is also great joy. Because on Sunday, both men got it
right.
Exactly right.
BACK TO TOP
Sampras' Victory the Perfect
Bookend to his Career
By Steve Wilstein, AP
NEW YORK — Rivals chided him, friends gave him advice,
and his family tried to console him. Hardly anyone believed Pete
Sampras really could win again.
They thought his legs were gone, his serve had lost its sting,
his forehand was shot. They thought that at 31 the game had passed
him by, that he was chasing rainbows, deluding himself.
Every time some no-name player beat him in this year of misery
on the court, Sampras seemed more and more pathetic. He looked
bewildered, admitted he had lost his confidence, yet kept insisting
that somehow he would win one more.
Sampras, as it turned out, knew himself better than anyone else
did.
His 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 triumph over Andre Agassi on Sunday to
win a fifth U.S. Open and capture a 14th Grand Slam title was
a tribute to perseverance and resilience in the face of a world
of doubt.
Sampras said he wants to play at least one more year. But if
he never wins another major, he can walk away satisfied that he
defied his critics with the perfect bookend to his career. A dozen
years ago at the U.S. Open, he won his first major title by beating
Agassi in the final. To close it out with a similar victory would
be a fitting symmetry.
Sampras and Agassi have been going at each other for two decades,
since they were teenage twigs with championship dreams. They met
this time as the oldest pairing in a U.S. Open final, Agassi at
32 and looking for his eighth Grand Slam title.
Yet the message about age in this match is that it didn't matter.
Sampras cracked 33 aces, crushed volleys and ran as hard as he
always did. Agassi pummeled groundstrokes with all the force of
his best years and lost only because Sampras was too good. On
this day, with his serve clipping the lines at 130 mph, no one
of any age would have beaten Sampras.
“I was having a hard time getting on it and getting off
the mark and making any sort of impact at all,” Agassi said.
“I think he sensed that.”
It took Agassi nearly two hours to find even a crack in Sampras'
game, to break him with lunging returns and extend the match to
a fourth set. But Sampras kept tattooing the lines, pressuring
Agassi, and beat him for the 20th time in their 34 career meetings
by coming up, once more, with bigger shots on the big points.
“This one might take the cake,” Sampras said. “I
never thought anything would surpass what happened at Wimbledon
a couple of years ago. But the way I've been going this year,
to come through this and play the way I did today was, it was
awesome. ”
That 2000 Wimbledon victory, his seventh on Centre Court, was
one of the most emotional of his life. He set the men's record
for Grand Slam titles and, for the first time, his parents were
there to watch. They all shed tears when they hugged at the end.
This time, his pregnant wife — actress Bridgette Wilson
— was courtside, and he walked into the stands at the end
to hug her. Instead of tears, they shared smiles and a long, meaningful
look of love and relief after all they had been through. He had
hugs, too, for his sister and his coach, Paul Annacone, who came
back to prepare him for this tournament after they broke up last
year.
“Those people really are the reason I'm here,” Sampras
said. “I had that support. There were moments where I was
struggling to continue to play. My wife really supported me and
kept me positive, kept me upbeat. That support was huge for me
at this stage of my career.
“So much of what I was going through this year was mental.
It wasn't forehands and backhands and serves. It was kind of my
head space. I wasn't real positive, kind of got down on myself
extremely quick out there.”
The route to the championship couldn't have been much harder
for Sampras. Aside from all the problems he had coming in, all
the early losses in tournaments this summer, the rain had wrecked
the first week of the Open. Sampras had to win five matches in
seven days and go through some tough players: Greg Rusedski, Tommy
Haas, and the new American hopeful, Andy Roddick.
Sampras beat Rusedski in five sets, only to hear the Brit claim
that he wasn't impressed. Sampras was “a step-and-a-half”
slower than he used to be, Rusedski said, and wouldn't get past
anyone else. Sampras shot back that he didn't have to be faster
to beat Rusedski, then he went on to take out Haas in four sets
and Roddick in three.
“His game is able to raise itself at the right time,”
Agassi said. “There's still a danger in the way he plays
and how good he is. Anybody that says something different is really
ignorant. They don't understand the game of tennis. Pete has a
lot of weapons out there.”
Sampras knew it all along. He believed in himself and just had
to convince everyone else.
BACK TO TOP
Pete Sampras:
Resurrexit
ByTeodoro C. Benigno, Philippine Star
[Wednesday, September 11, 2002] -A couple of months ago, we
were on the verge of writing a black-border column "Requiescat
in Pace" sealing the tennis career of Pete Sampras. We couldn't
stand the sight of the erstwhile great and unbeatable Sampras
losing to unknowns in preliminary rounds. He was a champion turned
Bowery bum. It was agony. It was like seeing Michael Jordan stumped
on a basketball court by a sandlot simp. It was like watching
Muhammad Ali lace on the gloves only to be bowled over by a six-rounder
cadging money for a bottle of booze.
Pete had to be told. He no longer had his pistol. He was washed
out. It was a great shame for this tennis immortal with 13 grandslams
to venture into a tournament court only to be bushwhacked by journeymen
who couldn't even carry his tennis shoes in the old glory days.
But Pete Sampras was not listening at all. The only one who listened
was his beautiful actress wife Bridgette Wilson. Now pregnant
and occupying the upper boxes, she looked on with unabated confidence
her man would come through. Bridgette stood by him, this blonde
who rarely smiled. She believed, like Pete, that someday he would
pick up all the shattered pieces
of so many late defeats. He would piece them together again, and
bring out the golden burnish of old. I didn't believe anything
like that. I figured that just like any other athlete who had
reached his peak, Pete Sampras was now tooling around like an
old wasted T-Ford and picking up the crumbs. They never learn,
do they?
Then after his 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Andre Agassi in
the US Tennis Open, Sampras supplied the answer.
In a post-game interview, he said: "So much of what I was
going through this year was mental. It wasn't forehands and backhands
and serves. It was kind of my head space. I wasn't real positive,
kind of got down on myself extremely quick out there." Mental.
So that was what it was. Mind over matter, the old saw goes. The
body was there. The arms, the legs, the whippet-niched muscles.
Sampras still had the body that the best training and physical
conditioning in the world could shape. After all, even Michael
Jordan was able to prove that at age 39, he could still fix his
mind. And from there, motivate the lowly Washington Wizards to
soar and settle once, twice on the eagle's mountain perch.
Mental, that's up there. What we didn't believe in, Sampras believed
in. He just couldn't believe the fluids had completely gone out
of his body. He just couldn't believe the mind had deserted the
body, and couldn't control it anymore, make it do its bidding.
Along the route, along the way, he was fashioning the lock that
could bring both together again. Not for a comeback that would
last long, but a comeback that would stitch a cynical world together
in one last great superhuman effort. This would give tennis its
old magic, its old mystique, a dazzle not seen before Sampras
and not to be seen again except for this one last time. At Flushing
Meadows.
And it had to be with Andre Agassi.
Here was another tennis great who Pete had played 34 times. The
marvel was that Agassi brought out the best in Sampras. Each time
they met in the finals, whether Wimbledon or the US Open, Agassi's
was the sculptor's hand working on rare marble. He constantly
chipped at this marble with such a plodding fury that it brought
out a Sampras rarely seen and rarely beheld - a champion who brought
tennis to perfection. It's the same with some actors and actresses
on screen and on stage. They are at their best when another prodigy
is around, challenging, motivating, igniting, spurring. It is
the same too with writers. The best is the best because he or
she wrestles the others to the ground.
So when Pete Sampras finally nudged his mind to center stage
during the US Open, he could stroll into and out of the court
like the Pistol Pete of old. In white T-shirt and white shorts
with a white band on his left forearm, he walked the center court
of Flushing Meadows with a brisk professional stride. This absolutely
left no doubt the greatest of the great was back to
his old stomping grounds. Pete had no swagger or swashbuckle at
all. But you knew as he walked he owned Flushing Meadows more
than anybody else, five US Opens now tucked under his belt.
The game? The least one can say is that it left everybody breathless.
Now as I look back, I can see Sampras' mental game. He had geared
his mind to sweep like so many cameras into the playing styles
of his major opponents in the Open. He had them all pat, Greg
Rusedski of Britain, Tommy Haas of Germany, Andy Roddick of the
US. He looked for weaknesses and found them. He knew where cross-court
placements could be most effective, volleys and half-volleys could
catch the foe wrong-footed. And what was more, his 130 MPH serve
had lost none of its speed and sting. They were knives thrown
by a Mohawk straight to the heart.
Sampras' mind told him he had to rush the net more often than
before. This would cut playing time. He could commit errors particularly
in half-volley's which he netted quite often. But he could also
force his adversary into errors. Something happens when Sampras
surges to the net. Its like Joe Louis leading with a left, his
right cocked for a crushing blow. Sampras at the
net forewarns his opponent a knockout stroke could be forthcoming
and this unsettles the latter, breaks his rhythm. The apprehension
is psychological. Nobody is more fearsome and deadly than Pete
at the net. A wobbly or errant return often gets into Sampras'
volley. This is a conductor's baton that controls every musical
instrument.
Now, nothing matters any more.
Little tufts of curly hair have evacuated the back of Sampras'
pate. But otherwise, the thick shock of hair remains. The old
boyish grin now seldom shows. He doesn't pump his right fist anymore
after a fierce exchange, though at times he talks to himself,
reminders perhaps as to how he can improve his game. Mental. Everything
mental. After Rusedski, I didn't think
Sampras could get past Andy Roddick, the so-called "future"
of American male tennis. Roddick, who had twice beaten Sampras,
could only look in awe as Sampras got out of a magic box and beat
him in straight sets.
As has been my wont, I normally go into a brief description of
a championship game. I have said everything I want to say. And
it is well that I spotted Pete Sampras early on in the US Tennis
Open. And yes, started writing about him in this space. I can't
say or write anything more. It was Andre Agassi who described
him best a year or so ago after one of their
classic encounters. He said it was hard to beat a man "who
walks in the air." He does walk on air and makes it look
easy..["..walks on water", Wimbledon, 99]
And we are all the richer for still being around.
Sampras Shares Win with Wife
By Greg Boeck, USA Today
NEW YORK -- Even before he kissed the U.S. Open trophy he would
say later was the icing on the cake of his resurrected career,
Pete Sampras sought out his wife in the stands and kissed her.
No Bridgette Wilson, no 14th Grand Slam victory, no end of the
worst slump of his career, he said after his remarkable four-set
win against longtime rival Andre Agassi netted him his first victory
in two years.
''She's a big reason why I've been able to kind of get through
this tough period,'' Sampras said. ''She lives with me every day.
Trust me, it's not easy. When you're struggling, you're not having
fun. It's a burden. Just showed me that I met the right woman.''
He married the actress two months after he broke the Grand Slam
record for titles at Wimbledon in 2000. That's when he turned
his focus to family, not tennis. Coincidentally or not, that's
when the dry spell kicked in.
Many pundits and analysts pointed to Sampras' domestication as
the reason for his slump.
''I just felt like I was at a point in my career that it was
a tough place to be after winning 13. Got married two months later.
I was happy. I was happy being married. I met the woman of my
dreams, and now we're going to have a child. That's what life's
all about.''
Bridgette is due in November. Her husband was overdue when he
came to his 13th U.S. Open. His winless streak was at 33, including
a humbling second-round exit in June at Wimbledon. At the site
of his greatest triumph, he hit his low point, he said.
His confidence was shot. Doubts crept in for the first time in
his career. ''(I) just was empty,'' he said. ''I was working so
hard. I was doing all the right things. It wasn't clicking. Little
anxiety creeped in. You just lose a little confidence.''
His wife never wavered, however. She sent him a note at Wimbledon,
saying she still believed in him. That kept him going.
''I got home and was pretty down for a week or so, and I just
needed to kind of start working again. That's all you can do when
you're at a low point, is start practicing -- and that's what
I did. It paid off here.''
It paid off bigger than anyone expected. Now he's back on top
of the tennis world he ruled for six years in a row in the 1990s
as No. 1. Back then, it was a job. Now it's a joy he happily shared
with his wife with a public embrace inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.
He could walk away now on his terms. But that's unlikely. This
title revived him. ''All the adversity I was up against this year,
I was able to get through it. That means more to me than anything.
''I've done too much in the game to hear the negative things
and start believing it. Because there was a point I was believing
it, maybe this time. But having my family, my wife just kind of
keep me going . . . that was huge for me.''
So what's next for Sampras?
''I don't know where I'm going to go from here . . . going to
take some time to enjoy it, reflect a little bit and kind of see
where I'm at.''
Right now he's back on top.
What Makes a Champion?
By Simon Barnes, The Times UK
There are few truly great champions, but Pete Sampras has just
proved himself one by conquering his demons to win his 14th Grand
Slam event. Our correspondent says genuine sporting greatness
defies analysis - but we know it when we see it
Pete Sampras is one of the greatest athletes in history and the
most successful tennis player who ever drew breath. He came to
Wimbledon this year as a man who had won 13 Grand Slam events,
more than anyone in history. He has won Wimbledon seven times.
There is nowhere in the world where he plays better, where he
feels stronger. It is his place. How could he fall so low, then?
How could he be reduced to a morose, hunched, troubled, brooding
figure — a sort of Rodin statue entitled Self-Doubt? There
he was on Wimbledon’s Court Two — that’s the one
they call “the graveyard of champions” — slumped
in his chair, like a schoolboy punished for something the other
fellow did, a picture of bewilderment, a lost soul.
Icarus without his wings, Samson without his hair, Superman beset
by green Kryptonite: a man gelded by self-doubt and by Time. It
was but the second round of the tournament, and there, incomprehensibly,
Sampras was losing.
He was losing to a chap named George Bastl, who was ranked 145
in the world. It was an afternoon of piercing sadness.
All through the match, Sampras sought to stem the tide and put
Time into reverse gear. He did so by means of a piece of paper,
which he carried in his pocket like a holy relic. He drew it out
at each change of ends to read and re-read. It was nothing less
than an act of prayer.
It was a letter from his wife, Bridgette. It was the written
version of a full-on marital hug: the kind of hug you need when
you wake in the night and the demons come. “My husband, seven
times Wimbledon champion Pete . . .” Gill Allen, the Times
photographer at the match, took the Picture that Said It All.
The letter was plainly legible: full of urgent sweetness and shared
trouble, things that are part of every marriage. A good marriage
makes every bad day at the office bearable: this was the self-doubt,
the despair, of one of the great champions. “Remember this.
You are truly the best tennis player ever to pick up a tennis
racket.”
The only snag about the letter was that it didn’t actually
work. Bastl held his nerve, and Sampras failed to locate his own.
Bastl won 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4. It was an epic of despair.
And all of us who have a good understanding of these things knew
then that Sampras would never be a champion again. With that 13th
Grand Slam success he had reached a peak that no one else had
climbed: and was sated. Age, marriage, content, achievement: these
things had unmanned him. No wonder he needed the letter: no wonder
it didn’t work. Goodbye, Pete. It has been a joy and a privilege
watching you.
Please don’t hang about too long losing, because those of
us who knew you as a champion find it painful. Retire, go gently
into that good night, leave the arena of pain. Goodnight, sweet
Pete, and flights of Bridgettes sing thee to thy rest.
We didn’t run the picture of the letter in The Times, it
being a piece of private correspondence. But Sampras gave us permission
to run it today, so thanks, Pete. And why the hell shouldn’t
he give us permission to reveal his moment of weakness in such
detail? He is a champion again. Remember those 13 Grand Slam successes
I mentioned earlier? Erase that from your mind.
Make it 14.
On Sunday evening in New York he won the US Open. He beat the
great Andre Agassi in the final, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, 6-4. It was pretty
agonising stuff: Sampras was masterful initially, then Agassi
came steaming back in and found Sampras once again a victim of
self-doubt. His serve is not just his weapon, it is his fortress:
but the walls cracked and crumbled and he began to double-fault
on big points: never a good sign.
In the last two sets Agassi was all over him. Sampras was doing
his bewildered-bear walk again. No letter: just occasionally mute
glances up at the seating where a pretty blonde woman sat nursing
a bump and anxiety.
And he won. Just like that. Speaking as someone not inexperienced
in watching the pivotal moment of a big sporting occasion, I have
simply no idea at all what happened. It was as if Sampras just
decided to win: and that decision was irrevocable. Bang: Agassi
broken. Double-bang: Pete serving like a tsunami. In an eye blink
or two, it was all over, Agassi washed away.
In those two games we saw the Sampras of old: there was music
in the air again and all the old powers were there intact. He
is not that ancient — at 31 he is a year younger than Agassi
— but he has travelled, he has climbed peaks, and he has
known little rest. He won his first Grand Slam event at 19 and
went into a decline for a full year: he confessed, with an honesty
that shocked many, that the “responsibility” of being
a champion was too much for him. Old tennis hands scoffed and
said he lacked the mettle of a real champion. Being a champion
tends to demand that little bit of insensitivity — after
all, the only way to become a champion is by destroying lots of
other people as you go — but Sampras has always had a touch
of sensitivity, a touch of vulnerability. He doesn’t work
by naked aggression and demonic, obsessional motivation.
There is something a little mystical about him. His trademark
is the second-serve ace: the ultimate piece of high-speed, high-power
nerve-holding in tennis’s poker game. It is a shattering
ploy when it comes off: showing your greatest strength at the
moment of greatest weakness.
Sampras was asked what was going through his mind when he had
played such a shot at the turning point of a game. After a moment’s
thought, he said: “There was absolutely nothing going through
my mind at the time.”
This is nothing less than pure Zen: and it has been recognised
as such by the Zen master Sister Elaine McInnes in her book Zen
Contemplation: “In action, Sampras lets go, and gives over
to that inner momentum . . . in the Orient, not-knowing is highest
wisdom.” It is one further mystery in sport’s greatest
of all mysteries. All elite athletes are very good, but only some
of them are serial winners, champions for all time. Why has Sampras
won 14 Grand Slam events and Tim Henman none? Sampras has shown
that he is as prone to fits of self-doubt as any of us. Yet he
is a champion. What is still greater is that he lost whatever
it is that makes people champions, and then found it again.
Muhammad Ali was also washed up and defeated for ever on more
than one occasion. He came back not once but twice. In all he
won the world heavyweight championship three times. There was
always a feeling of destiny about Ali: and it had nothing to do
with the civil rights movement, for all that this is an inextricable
part of his story. It was about his desire to win: to be the best.
“King of the World!” he shouted after he had beaten
Sonny Liston for his first championship.
“King of the World!” Steve Redgrave, the oarsman, went
into the Sydney Olympics two years ago as the weak link of a defeated
crew. He had set off in pursuit of an impossible fifth gold medal,
having famously told the world that anyone who saw him in a boat
again had full permission to shoot him. He then contracted diabetes.
He had more than enough excuses to give up: or at least lose.
But he didn’t. A man with a strange obsession who sought
to turn pain into gold, and did it again and again. An aspect
of his greatness is that he never got bored. But why? Don’t
ask him. That sort of thing is always as much a mystery to the
athlete as to the spectator.
Sebastian Coe won his first Olympic medal in Moscow in 1980.
Partly he did it for his father, Peter, who was his coach. Four
years on and coaching himself, he had been written off for the
Los Angeles Olympics after disastrous preparation. In Moscow he
won like a gazelle, all pure, beautiful talent and naivety. In
Los Angeles he won by means of wild storming aggression that should
have got him locked up. “Who says I’m ****ing finished?”
he raged at the press afterwards, eyes like organ stops.
Calm down, Seb, you’ve won. “Who says I’m ****ing
finished?” Many athletes use hatred, often hatred of the
press, as a motivation.
Others use their loyalty to a coach, or even to a marriage partner.
Others work some personal mythology of greatness and destiny.
Lord knows what Sampras uses: he is pretty close with his secrets
(apart from his adoration of his wife) and, Zen-like, avoids too-close
analysis.
But all the great champions, the very few for whom the word “great”
can be used without embarrassment, have something beyond these
common motivational forces. They may use various mental tricks
to trigger it — love, hatred, lust for glory — but the
real motivation for greatness is subtle and elusive of analysis.
There have been oarsmen as strong as Redgrave, runners as fast
as Coe, boxers who punch as hard as Ali. There have been tennis
players who hit the ball as hard and as accurately as Sampras:
but only one man has won 14 Grand Slam events. It is not because
of his tennis — nor even because of his wife — that
Sampras is truly the best tennis player ever to pick up a tennis
racket. He, like the other few genuine greats, has that within
that passes show and defies
analysis.
But we know it when we see it all right: and it is high and rare
and beautiful. And terrible.
BACK TO TOP
Time Stands Still for Sampras
as a Star is Reborn
By Neil Harman, The Times UK
THE forecast called for crystal clear skies across Manhattan
on Sunday evening, a perfect opportunity to look up and pray for
a small favour from the sporting gods. They had bestowed plenty
upon Pete Sampras down the years but he wanted one more. In the
circumstances, on this night, it was not too much to ask.
Sampras had insisted that he had one more grand-slam title in
him but many of those who wanted to believe closed their ears
to him. Surely the glory days had passed by, his hair was coming
out in clumps, he was a dinosaur, the roost was ruled by kids
with back-to-front hats and a serious attitude. For a couple of
years, his own bosses at the ATP had been promoting their “New
Balls Please” campaign, relentlessly plugging the virtues
of being young, restless
and brooding.
Not so fast, not so fast. When New Yorkers rose yesterday to
start a week that will rip at their emotions, they can draw small
consolation in the story of a superstar reborn. The 31-year-old
Sampras won the US Open, his fourteenth grand-slam title —
breaking his own record — with a flourish of a backhand volleys
played from beneath the top of the net. It is not a shot that
many players perform with any degree of ease. It is one of the
strokes that sets Sampras apart, which flies in the face of the
modern belief that only from the back of the court will you prosper.
This was one for the old styles in the grand manner. John McEnroe,
loving every minute, said that Sampras’s triumph suspended
belief. It certainly suspended time.
When the nights begin to draw in on your career, it is alarming.
Sampras has had his dose of the chills. He had reached the past
two finals here only to be blown away and the schedule makes demands
on every last iota of your courage and patience. Sampras came
to this fulcrum of teeming intensity, played two matches in the
first week, the weather closed in and he became aware that, to
win the title, he would need to play five matches in seven days
against what appeared insurmountable odds.
But he did it. He fought through, he can hold his head high.
The doubters are fleeing to the hills, or in the case of Greg
Rusedski, his third-round victim, are wishing that they had kept
their thoughts to themselves. Incredible to think that, before
he met Andre Agassi on Sunday, the only player to whom Sampras
had lost his service was the British No 2. Rusedski will have
that
thought to sustain him through the next few weeks when he will
be seeing Sampras’s laughing face around every corner.
“This one might take the cake,” Sampras said after
his 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory in the final. “Just after
the thirteenth slam at Wimbledon in 2000, I was trying to figure
out my goals. This year I was struggling and hearing I should
stop, negative tones from the press. To have believed in myself
through those tough times means an awful lot. It was a good effort,
one of my better ones.” One of his better understatements.
New York’s billboards have been adorned these past two weeks
with the images of the sport’s superstars in commercials
for American Express. The one for Sampras has two faces of him
bearing precisely the same expression under the slogan “The
official card of agony and ecstasy”. It has long been Sampras’s
lot to have had to deal with glory and ambivalence in symmetrical
measure.
It is not misleading to report that the huge majority of the
New Yorkers packed into the Arthur Ashe Stadium would have preferred
it if Agassi had walked away as the champion. He is one of them
even if, in reality, he is nothing like them in the slightest.
But they warm to where he comes from, Las Vegas, the fact he had
long streaky hair once, that he played in denim jeans
as a kid, that he was a non-conformist.
Sampras was the opposite, a quiet, reserved lad from California
who could throw up on court and still come back to win in a way
that set him apart. That he played in a certain way, walked in
a certain way and did not open up in the manner the people expected
meant that he accumulated wealth and titles but could not count
on deep-rooted affection.
He merits a tickertape parade as soon as the first anniversary
of September 11 has gone and this city can paint its face once
more with smiles. Think of it, 14 grand-slam titles, two more
now than Roy Emerson, whose record they said could never be beaten.
Given that the sport has become so athletic, so demanding on the
body, to see two men with a combined age of 63 making good on
their expertise did the heart good.
“No disrespect to anyone else I’ve played over the
years, but he’s the best I’ve ever played,” Sampras,
who, with the victory, extended his winning record over Agassi
to 20-14, said. “He brings out the best in me, I’ve
said that over the years. These moments are great moments, win
or lose, competing against the best.”
As he kissed the trophy, it was interesting to note that Sampras
had become the oldest grand-slam champion since Arthur Ashe won
Wimbledon in 1975 at 31 years and 11 months. And he had achieved
it in the stadium named for the great man. It would be a fitting
way in which to say goodbye.
Pistol Pete Joins the
Immortals
By Xan Brooks, The Guardian UK
The annoying thing about sporting legends is that they tear up
the form book and make a mockery of history. That's what makes
them legends. Way back in 1990, an untried teenager really shouldn't
have beaten Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe and Andre Agassi in successive
matches to become the youngest US Open champion ever. By the same
token, a broken-down old has-been should not have won the same
tournament again late last night. But that's Pete Sampras for
you. Throughout his career, he's made a habit of leaving the experts
with egg on their faces.
As with Sampras's first US Open title, last night's four-set
final triumph over Agassi was a victory without precedent. Remember
that the American had not won a tournament of any kind since pocketing
his seventh Wimbledon more than two years ago. At 31, he was skidding
down the rankings; mauled by the younger generation who'd usurped
him (Lleyton Hewitt, Roger Federer, Marit Safin) and ambushed
by underlings who wanted his balding scalp in their trophy cabinet.
After his unceremonious bundling out of this year's Wimbledon
(knocked out in round two by Edward Bastl, a "lucky loser"
from qualifying), it seemed all over bar the shouting. Sampras,
it was said, was spent, obsolete, a shot fighter. Yevgeny Kafelnikov
even suggested that tennis's most successful player risked ruining
his reputation by sticking around. Most thought he should have
retired back in 2000.
As such, Sampras came into this year's Open as a rank outsider.
Greg Rusedski almost nailed him in round three, and later dismissed
his conquerer as "a player from the past". Sampras,
said Greg, wouldn't last another round.
How wrong can you be? The next night, Sampras battled past third-seeded
Tommy Haas. Incredibly, he then swatted America's rising star
Andy Roddick (who he'd lost to in two previous matches). By the
time he reached the semis, Sampras had the look of destiny about
him. His climactic besting of old rival Andre Agassi was a finale
that might have been dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter.
What Sampras's win shows is that - pound for pound - the man
remains the most complete, natural and purely gifted player in
the game. Mentally he may be more inconsistent, while his hunger
has surely been dulled by a personal fortune estimated at $60m.
But put him on a big stage, with the weight of history on his
shoulders, and he's still the one to beat.
The significance of last night's win is hard to overstate. Judged
on sporting terms alone, it bears comparison with 1974's Rumble
in the Jungle. Like Ali in Zaire, Sampras wasn't given a hope
of victory. Like Ali, this over-the-hill icon proceeded to rebound
off the ropes to reclaim all his old firepower and guile.
And yet the reserved, remorseless Sampras does not lend himself
to such hyperbole. Therefore, let's simply file this record-breaking
14th Grand Slam title as just another head-scratchingly unlikely
moment in a career that has defied all predictions. Chances are
that the 2002 US Open title will stand as Pete Sampras's glorious
swan-song. Almost certainly he'll never win another. All the same,
you'd be a fool to bet against him.
Timeless Sampras Ponders
Quitting on a High
By Stephen Bierley, The Guardian, UK
Before winning this year's US Open, an achievement as remarkable
as anything in his long career, Pete Sampras had signalled that
he intended playing for another year. Now he faces a dilemma.
Should he quit, having proved everybody wrong by winning his 14th
slam after more than two barren years, or should he push on in
order perhaps to gain an eighth Wimbledon title and erase the
ugly memories of this year's second-round defeat?
Late on Sunday evening, with the lights of Manhattan twinkling
in the distance, he returned to the centre court of the Arthur
Ashe Stadium where a few hours earlier he had thrown his arms
around his greatest rival, Andre Agassi, having beaten him 6-3,
6-4, 5-7, 6-4 for a victory Sampras described as the one that
would "take the cake".
Dressed in his baggy shorts and flip-flops, he taped yet another
television interview, this time for a morning show in his adopted
home city of Los Angeles. Weariness still lined his face, but
finally he was at ease with himself, the warm glow of success
bathing his body once again after 26 months without kissing a
tournament trophy, and this having won 63 between 1990 and Wimbledon
2000.
Before the start of the final his eyes had darted around the
vast and steepling Arthur Ashe Stadium in which he had never won
the title before, as if he knew, win or lose, that this might
be the last of the big time. His wife Bridgette, expecting their
first child, and his sister Stella gazed down, as did his longtime
coach Paul Annacone who, following a brief but amicable split,
had returned to his side after Wimbledon. Sampras had won the
first of his five US Open titles 12 years previously against Agassi
at Flushing Meadows when they were 19 and 20 respectively. After
this win the circle seemed complete.
Sampras knew it too, but after finally rediscovering something
of his former glory - and for two sets he was imperious - the
voices in his head were whispering again of further successes.
"I still want to play. I love to play," he said. "But
to beat a rival like Andre at the US Open is a storybook ending.
It might be nice to stop ... but ... " A huge grin lit his
face, and the laughter was immediate. "But I still want to
compete. I'll see where I am in a couple of months, where my heart's
at and my mind. Right now it's hard to talk. My head is spinning."
But pushed a little further, as is the way at such times, Sampras
underlined that this victory had probably meant more to him than
clinching his record 13th grand slam victory at Wimbledon two
years ago. "So much of what I was going through this year
was mental, and I got down on myself extremely quick. To get through
and believe in myself at a very tough time means a lot. More than
anything, probably."
New Yorkers could empathise with him, and they could also feel
sorry for Agassi, who has always been their favourite. They roared
on his fightback in the third set as Sampras visibly flagged,
and strained to lift Agassi in the crucial fourth game of the
fourth set which stretched to seven deuces before Sampras crucially
held his serve for 2-2. "It was a massive game," said
Sampras. "The momentum had switched in the third set, and
I managed to squeak it out. It was a huge turning point."
This was the 34th meeting between the two Americans, and Sampras's
20th win. "I've needed Andre over the course of my career,
like John McEnroe needed Bjorn Borg. He pushed me. He forced me
to add things to my game. He's the only guy who has been able
to do that. He's the best I've played."
The rivalry cannot last for much longer, they both know that.
"It's hard to say what the future is going to hold for us,"
said Sampras. "Five years ago we were dominating. This could
be it for us, but maybe next year we'll do it again." It
seems unlikely. Agassi's urge to continue may be greater; only
time will tell. "Pete has given a lot to the game, so I think
he's getting his just support right now," said Agassi. "The
difference is people thought I'd been at the end of my career
for the last eight years."
If this was to be their last meeting at this level, then it was
both a reflection of their relative merits and of their comparative
standing: Sampras, the greatest server in the modern game; Agassi
the greatest returner. Sampras has his record 14 slams, Agassi
has the distinction of winning all four, including the French
Open, which Sampras will never win.
But this was Sampras's finest hour, and should he decide to retire
before the end of the year nobody, on this occasion, would be
the least surprised. Which is not to say he will.
Once More, With Feeling
Recalling Glory Days, Sampras Tops Agassi for Fifth Open
Crown
By: John Jeansonne, Newsday.com
They played past twilight. Not theirs; New York's.
Dinner time passed and the sun went down, but old favorites Pete
Sampras and Andre Agassi were still out there, actually gaining
momentum in their latest production of high tennis theater.
The sellout crowd of 25,210 in Arthur Ashe Stadium had been warmed
up slowly with an overture of two Sampras-dominated sets, then
was presented new dramatic possibilities as Agassi's game snapped
to attention and the U.S. Open final moved deeper into the fourth
set, Sampras trying to close out the match and Agassi desperately
trying to extend it.
Increasingly boisterous, talking back to itself with cries of
"Pete!" answered by shouts of "Andre!", the
crowd expressed simultaneous, divergent desires. It wanted history:
a 14th major tournament title for Sampras. It wanted more tennis:
a fifth set. It wanted happiness for Sampras, appreciated but
not necessarily loved most of his career. But also happiness for
Agassi, always a fan magnet.
Before long, everyone would get a 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 Sampras
victory, after a final set that recalled why Sampras-Agassi can
light up a stadium with its unpredictable tugs-of- war played
out with contrasting styles.
For the 31-year-old Sampras, having heard for almost two years
that his star has faded, raising his fifth U.S. Open trophy was
almost more than he could ask for. "This might take the cake.
This might be my biggest achievement so far," he said, "to
come through the year I've had and win the U.S. Open, that's pretty
sweet."
For the 32-year-old Agassi, it was "disappointing to lose,
but I think I've been more disappointed in my career." After
all, he had been part of what everyone knew could be the last
Grand Slam tournament final between the two leading characters
from the Greatest American Tennis Generation.
Never before, in the 34 years of the open era, had this tournament's
championship final featured two men over 30 years old. Yet the
mood, quite the opposite from recent talk of finding new stars,
was not only to savor another Pete repeat or another Andre ecstasy,
but beyond that: Why get rid of a good thing?
"We're still out here doing it; it's hard to get around
that fact," Agassi said.
Through the early going, the only danger was Sampras' play, so
crisp it was strangling potential excitement. His serve - he would
finish with 33 aces - was either winning points outright or setting
him up for his equally keen volleys.
"There were points that reminded me a little bit of Wimbledon,"
he said, thinking of his seven championships there. "I got
in the zone and everything clicked."
Agassi felt "pretty outplayed those first two sets,"
but the original Sampras-Agassi glory days magic would rear up
in the third. Agassi began to demonstrate his dead-reckoning service
return, snapping the ball back at Sampras' feet and tangling him
up. Agassi began to break the spell of Sampras' net control with
some screaming passing shots.
The show was on when Agassi's hot backhand return broke Sampras
at the end of a long 12th game to give Agassi the third set, 7-5.
"The crowd was so electric," Sampras said. "and
there was that huge roar when he broke me to take the third."
With Sampras leading two sets to one but beginning to take more
and more time between serves, it was logical to wonder if Sampras'
fuel gauge was dipping below the quarter-full mark and that, if
Agassi could get to a fifth set, the momentum might swing his
way. "I was feeling it a bit in the third," Sampras
said.
But Sampras made it through a tense 20-point game early in the
fourth set to hold serve and again saved a break point in the
tough eighth game to stay even at 4-4. Then came Sampras' quick
break of Agassi in the ninth game, and Sampras served out the
match with two service winners, an ace, and a volley winner.
With that, could it be that the grand Sampras-Agassi rivalry
is over? "To beat a rival like Andre in a major tournament,
at the U.S. Open in a storybook ending," Sampras said, "it
might be nice to stop. But . . . I still want to compete."
Besides, Agassi's son Jaden is 10 months old and Sampras' wife,
Bridgette, is expecting a child later this year, and the two have
traded barbs over whose offspring would prevail in the next generation.
"For sure," Agassi said, "I see Jaden beating
up on his kid a little bit on the tennis court. If it's a little
girl, I've got 100 bucks that says she has a crush on Jaden."
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part
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