Posted on: September 02nd, 2002
Classy Sampras forever a Champ
- petepageSource: USA Today
NEW YORK — Pete Sampras is sitting there with his headset on, nodding and smiling and waiting out the rain, reminding you there is at least one place in sports offering refuge from the divas and louts. His U.S. Open locker is No. 163 if you're scoring at home. No brooding, ranting or preening allowed, just ordinary grace from an extraordinary champion who has every right now to abuse a racket or three.
He should be raving mad, Ilie Nastase mad, over this question posed by writers and fans who should know better: How dare Sampras win 13 majors and then stumble about his sport the way a failing Muhammad Ali stumbled about the Bahamas while Trevor Berbick rearranged his pretty face?
Excuse me, but can Andy Roddick advance to one Grand Slam semi before we ask Sampras to quit committing unforced errors against his own legacy?
No, this five-set victory against Greg Rusedski wasn't a work of art and, no, the odds of Sampras winning five matches in seven days aren't good. But the man just turned 31, not 41. Phil Mickelson is older than Sampras, for goodness sake, and nobody's telling him to surrender his hopeless pursuit of Major No. 1. Jack Nicklaus endured five years without a Grand Slam title before taking his 18th at 46, an Augusta National triumph that defines him like no other Sunday.
In his heart of hearts, Sampras believes he has an '86 Masters coming his way. "Yes I do," he said. "That's why I'm still here. I think I've got one or two moments left in me, one more big bang."
As he spoke inside the locker room, Sampras was oblivious to the rain-delay testimonial playing on the overhead monitors. He was beating Andre Agassi all over again in last year's quarterfinal classic, a reminder that his best days and nights aren't the distant flickers many claim them to be.
Sampras was in the final here the last two years. Fatherhood beckons, but Sampras will still be a threat to win Wimbledon when his first grandchild's on the way; he is to grass what Anna Kournikova is to tan lines.
He shouldn't be escorted to the door now as if he were some dockworker getting ugly in a bar, not after peacefully making history while being told he wasn't making it with enough flair. "From Grand Slam 2 to 10," Sampras said, "people felt I was boring. It wasn't until Grand Slam 10 and 11 that people said, 'Let's appreciate what we're seeing here.' "
With the champion laboring on labor day the Louis Armstrong fans chanted, "Let's go Pete," before the decisive game in the fifth set.
Too little, too late. Sampras was convicted of being a vanilla scoop of serenity when he should've been celebrated for refusing to join the riotous band of village idiots headlined by Connors and McEnroe. "I never sold out," Sampras said. He remained true to himself, broke Roy Emerson's record with Arthur Ashe's class, and couldn't stir the public's imagination until his game and hair thinned. "That will always baffle me," he said.
It's not like he lived a humdrum life. Sampras suffered through the deaths of two friends (Vitas Gerulaitis and Tim Gullikson), married an actress, and cramped and puked his way through a few Shakespearean dramas.
He became the Tiger Woods of his sport, somehow without securing a fraction of Woods' mass appeal, before age and perspective conspired to keep him title-free since his historic Wimbledon two years back.
"I see a lot of similarities between Tiger and I," Sampras said. "It's that single-minded focus. It's his life, just like my life was being the world's best player. But now it's tough for me to be who I was five years ago. ... I've had enough of being No. 1 and looking over my shoulder."
That doesn't mean Sampras is Arnold Palmer trying to break 90 at The Masters, or Willie Mays trying to look able in the Shea Stadium outfield. It only means Sampras is a family man with fresh priorities, a forever champion who's earned the right to go out, as he said, "on my terms only."
Remember, boring isn't watching the greatest player ever chase his 14th major title, not when the alternative is watching Roger Federer chase his first.
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