Samprasfanz

By Bud Collins, Boston Globe

July 13, 2007

NEWPORT, R.I. — He was a shy little kid with a big smile, both hands on his racket, patrolling the baseline and hoping for the best. The bests would come. Many of them — but not before Pete Sampras spurted to 6 feet 3 inches, discarded the fashionable two-handed backhand, and established himself as a marauder who found a fortune and a record stash of major championships at the net.

A virtuoso of serve-and-volley, perhaps the last of that daring but vanishing breed, Sampras — seven-time Wimbledon champion — will be back on a grass court tomorrow, once more a winner. But no running necessary. This time, at Newport’s venerable Casino, the Californian will be promoted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

As a member of the Hall’s Class of ’07, Sampras is accompanied by the “Barcelona Bumblebee,” Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Swede Sven Davidson, and Massachusetts photographer Russ Adams. Their anointing precedes the semifinals of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships stopover on the ATP Tour.

A 19-year-old in 1990, Sampras became the youngest US Open champ. “I didn’t know what I was doing then,” he says. “It just happened.” That was the start of a string of majors ending at 14 in 2002 as he beat Andre Agassi to secure his fifth US title. Then he walked away, uniquely. No other great had closed a career with a major triumph.

Although Sampras is Wimbledon’s all-time main man with his seven titles (feeling Roger Federer’s heavy breathing), he confessed a dislike of grass, a bewilderment, “until my coach, Tim Gullikson, showed me the way.” Starting with his 1993 victory over Jim Courier, he was denied the championship only three times.

For me, Moscow ’95 was his pinnacle. Particularly as the Davis Cup now seems such a remote prize to Americans. Not only was Olympic Stadium jammed for the final by 16,000 loud partisans, but the Russians had installed a quicksand trap especially for Sampras, a turgid clay court, his least favorable footing.

Nevertheless, he took over as a one-man gang. Cramping at the end of a five-set struggle over Andrei Chesnokov, he collapsed after the last point, and was carried to the dressing room. One more point would have been too much. “I couldn’t have gone on,” he says. But, a surprise starter in doubles, Sampras blended with Todd Martin over Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy for the go-ahead point, 2-1. Then, spraying the court with aces and forehand winners, he clinched over Kafelnikov a farewell blast to the Cold War. The United States hasn’t won since.

Source: Boston Globe