Posted on: May 19th, 2003
Sampras leaves wiggle room for more Grand Slam play
- petepage[May 19, 2003 Christopher Clarey] Pete Sampras's decision last week to withdraw from the French Open and Wimbledon probably signals the end of the most remarkable tennis career in the past 30 years.
But that does not mean Sampras, the winner of a record 14 Grand Slam singles titles, has retired. He still wants to leave himself enough wiggle room for the second thoughts that might surface in the months ahead, particularly when he watches Wimbledon begin from afar for the first time since 1988.
"I am not ready to close the door quite yet on my career," he said when interviewed by ABC television Thursday in Los Angeles during a National Basketball Association playoff game in which his beloved Lakers were eliminated by the San Antonio Spurs.
Sampras, 31, has not played a competitive match since he won his 14th major title by defeating his longtime American rival, Andre Agassi, in the final of the U.S. Open last September.
If that remains his last match, it will rank as one of the most stirring farewells in history for a sports star.
"Sure we've talked about it," his coach, Paul Annacone, said by telephone Friday. "He feels, like, O.K., Andre Agassi, finals of the U.S. Open, two-year drought, 26,000 screaming fans; it doesn't get a whole hell of a lot better than that in terms of a resurgence and maybe an overall completion of the picture. It's like Michael Jordan hitting that last shot years ago against Utah.
"In a romantic way, everyone says, 'Walk away.' It sounds terrific. But in reality, it remains to be seen. We'll see what not being at Wimbledon does to him. Maybe it will fuel some fire, or maybe he'll say, 'I feel O.K. about it.'"
Though Sampras announced plans to return to competition in February, he has now withdrawn from several tournaments this season and said last week that it was very unlikely he would return for the U.S. Open this year.
Annacone said that Sampras practiced with him regularly through March but had been much more of a part-time player in the past six weeks, when Annacone has focused more on Sampras' business activities than on his game.
"It went to a couple times a week, and he probably went one spell where he didn't hit for two to three weeks," Annacone said. "Since then, it's been once or twice a week, a casual 40 minutes just to keep the groove."
Annacone, who believed Sampras needed two months of consistent effort leading into Wimbledon to stand a chance of winning his eighth title, said Sampras also had been playing beach volleyball and basketball.
"He's in decent shape; he needs to get in tennis shape," Annacone said. "It's not like he's weighing in at 215 with a case of Heineken sitting nearby."
But it also is not like he is burning with desire to prove himself again on the circuit that he dominated for much of the 1990s.
"When I started the process of trying to play Wimbledon, I found that my heart wasn't 100 percent into it," he told ABC. "It takes a lot of work, and if your heart's not into it, it's time to move on."
Sampras said he had chosen not to retire now because he did not want to run the risk of changing his mind.
As to whether Sampras might emulate Jordan's multiple retirements from professional basketball, Patrick McEnroe, the U.S. Davis Cup captain, said: "That's not his personality. He's stubborn in a way, very thoughtful about the decisions he makes. He's very attuned to his place in tennis history, and he's not going to play if he doesn't feel he can win, and he wants to make sure that when he says he's stopping, he is really done."
Annacone said Sampras was adamant that the birth of his first child in November was not influencing his thinking about continuing his career.
"It's not, 'I need to be home. I have to be with my child,'" Annacone said.
"It's about, 'Am I ready to do this seven days a week? With that focus, that discipline, that sacrifice?'
"Even though he's so introverted, people don't know what went on for him internally to stay at the top of the game for six years and win all those majors.
"There's a lot of fire there. Just because he doesn't verbalize it or act it out, people didn't realize that, and that's kind of who he is, what his makeup is, and he doesn't really want to go back unless he feels he can get to that emotional place where he wants to win like that.
"Basically he used the word 'need' with me, saying, 'I used to need to win Wimbledon.' There's a difference between wanting to and needing to."
Sampras would certainly have a motive for returning to Wimbledon. He won seven singles titles there, equaling the men's record established by William Renshaw in the 1880s when tennis was more genteel and much less competitive and the title holder only had to win one match to retain his crown instead of playing through the whole tournament.
But last year, Sampras suffered his most shocking defeat on Wimbledon's grass, losing in the second round to a Swiss journeyman, George Bastl. Still, even the memory of the Bastl match may not be enough.
"In a romantic way it is fuel," Annacone said. "Putting closure on that place, in particular, that he holds pretty close is an important facet. But I think really, after climbing that mountain, doing what he did in New York, he feels pretty good."
Perhaps the only hope for a comeback is if another mountain appears. Winning the French Open, the only Grand Slam title missing from his record collection, has long seemed unrealistic for a man who is no fan of clay. But Annacone, who is lobbying for Sampras to continue, thinks this long layoff just might generate its own challenge. In the modern game, no established star has managed to win major titles again after a long break from the sport: not John McEnroe, not Mats Wilander, not Boris Becker.
"Maybe that will be intriguing to him," said Annacone, acknowledging that, for the moment, retirement stood a much better chance of holding Sampras's interest.
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