Posted on: October 30th, 2002
Sampras` agent proceeding with plans for next year
- petepage[October 30, 2002 Greg Garber ESPN.com]
The Westside Tennis Club at Houston announced Wednesday that Jill Smoller, Sampras' agent at the William Morris Agency, said that Sampras is committed to play in the event, which will be held at the Houston club April 21-27, 2003. At the 2002 championships, Sampras defeated Andre Agassi in the semi-finals before losing to Andy Roddick in the finals.
Pete Sampras and his wife, actress Bridgette Wilson, may well become parents sooner than expected.
"The baby's due at the end of November," Jill Smoller, said Wednesday from her Los Angeles office. "But she visited the doctor yesterday and she's farther along than expected. We could be looking at the middle of the month."
So, while the world's top-ranked eight players are banging away at the Masters Cup in Shanghai on Nov. 12-17 to determine whether Andre Agassi or Lleyton Hewitt is the sport's No. 1 player, Sampras could be a first-time father back at home in Los Angeles.
After defeating Agassi in a back-to-the-future U.S. Open final -- the first of his record 14 Grand Slam singles titles came over Agassi in Flushing a dozen years before -- Sampras said he was thinking about retiring. In the two formal interviews he has granted since the Open, Sampras has kept that decision to himself. Connie Chung of CNN tired to pry the information from Sampras and his wife, but they didn't budge. Tennis writer Steve Flink, who wrote an incisive piece for The Independent of London in early October, came away thinking Sampras hadn't made up his mind yet.
What does Smoller think?
"At this moment, I believe he intends to play," she said. "I talk to him something like 15 times a day and he hasn't given me any indication that he's not going ahead. I'm approaching it as business as usual in terms of next season. I don't really have any choice."
Smoller's observation doesn't necessarily mean Sampras won't quit. The realities of today's sports world -- tournament commitments, potential endorsements and travel plans -- demand that she assume Sampras will play in 2003 until she hears otherwise.
"He's at home, enjoying the quiet with Bridgette," Smoller said Wednesday. "He's sort of got it in neutral right now."
Sampras, 31, finds himself in a weird and oddly wonderful position. No other notable champion of the Open Era -- not Laver, Borg, Connors, McEnroe or Lendl -- walked away from the game after a Grand Slam victory. On one hand, the timing for retirement, given his win at the U.S. Open, his increasingly brittle body and the prospect of impending fatherhood, couldn't be more ideal. On the other, Sampras' victory suggests he still might have another Slam in him.
"It is a no-lose situation for me," Sampras told Flink at a Philadelphia charity event. "I play next year, I won't have the same pressures I had this year. If I decide to stop I will just enjoy the next chapter of my life."
Before the Open, Sampras had endured the worst slump of his career, going 26 months without a tournament victory; he had not reached a final in 2002. Still, he insisted he could still win. Few believed him.
"I just wanted to win another major, to prove it most importantly to myself," he told Flink. "Winning the U.S. Open was not the biggest win of my career, but it was the most important. Putting people in their place is really me. But I feel very vindicated because every time my name came up for the past year it was all very negative, from Boris Becker and others.
"And in my own way, just what I did with my racket, I was able to throw a lot of egg around. That felt really good from the human side."
Now, will he try to do it again?
Sampras, who will finish the year ranked in the low teens -- he's currently No. 13 -- still has enough game to win on the ATP Tour. His problem in recent years has been finding the motivation to train adequately. If he doesn't retire, chances are he will build his season around winning Wimbledon for an eighth time. The grass at the All England Club is built for his still-big serve and deft volleys. In fact, last year's disastrous result at Wimbledon might be enough to swing him toward playing. In the obscurity of Court 2, Sampras lost a second round to George Bastl.
It wouldn't be terribly surprising to see Sampras savor the family life through the holidays and, perhaps, pass on the Australian Open in January. He hasn't won the event since 1997 and has skipped it three times. Retirement for a player who can still play is a ticklish decision. Australia's Patrick Rafter, a two-time U.S. Open champion, took extended time off at the end of 2001 and has made no move to return.
If Sampras does return, he plans to make the switch to a bigger racket. His Wilson Pro Staff, he said, has left him at a competitive disadvantage.
Now, will he be using that new racket on the charity circuit or in the game's grandest venues?
"I think this last U.S. Open showed a lot about who I am," Sampras told Flink. "More than just playing the game, this was about being 31 and still wanting to do it when people didn't believe in me. You always dream about how you might stop, and the storybook ending at the Open a month ago could be it. But I just don't know.
"It is still up in the air."
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