Samprasfanz

By Brian, Ettkin

July 19, 2007 — This is how it always should’ve been: Pete Sampras as most popular guy in the room, every seat taken because everyone’s come to see him. All those years he was brandishing a tennis racket as masterfully as a Jedi Knight swings his light saber, Sampras should’ve been a magnet for tennis fans, an irresistible attraction.

He had all the pull Wednesday night, people who’d never set foot in Schenectady’s Central Park, much less attended a World TeamTennis match here, trying to score Buzz tickets that were all accounted for.

Pete Sampras should be nearly as iconic a sports figure as Tiger Woods. But he’s not, in part because he was stolid Tim Duncan when people wished he had a little ill-tempered Rasheed Wallace in him.

He was known for decency and consistent excellence, not flamboyance and spiking emotions, and for that the British tabloids christened him Sourpras.

Jimmy Connors used obscenities to tell umpires to do things that seemed anatomically impossible. John McEnroe threw more tantrums than a class of preschoolers. Both were as volatile as Kilauea. They were showmen and street fighters, puckish and glib. They didn’t dominate the show. They became the show.

Sampras wasn’t merely his predecessors’ equal