Posted on: June 30th, 2009
A Tennis King Content to Stay Home
- petepageJune 28, 2009
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — As soon as Pete Sampras sat down for lunch Friday, his cellphone started vibrating. Someone was answering the S O S he had placed after running after his two revved-up children all morning. The voice on the other end was confirming his boat rental at Lake Sherwood for later in the afternoon.
Sampras, desperate for his two sons, Christian, 6, and Ryan, 3 ½, to catch a few moments of repose, was taking them fishing.
He repeated the name of the boat, the better to commit it to memory: Low Profile.
How fitting. In the years when Sampras, 37, ruled tennis, he was the cloistered king, his towering legacy built on a windowless, steely structure of repetition and ritual.
Since his retirement in 2003, Sampras has been no more visible, retreating to the light- and noise-filled world of fatherhood, his focus on the development of his living legacies.
Sampras could receive an urgent phone call some time in the next few days from an All England Club official, perhaps, or maybe a network executive hoping to lure him to London for the Wimbledon men’s final if Roger Federer were to grace it.
If Federer, who is through to the fourth round, wins his sixth Wimbledon title, he will earn his 15th major singles championship, one more than Sampras’s record total.
Would Sampras go to England to smile upon his successor? "I'm not sure," he said.
It would be a long way to travel for a cameo appearance, he said. And it would require leaving his boys — or less palatable still, taking them.
"Have you ever tried traveling with a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old?" he said, laughing.
If any place has the power to pull Sampras out of his routine, it is Wimbledon. For Sampras, it became more than a tournament; it was a time share he possessed for two weeks every summer.
Wimbledon is the place that holds many of his fondest memories. It is where he won seven singles titles, losing only four service games in those seven finals. It is where, in 2000, he came from one set down to defeat Pat Rafter and supplant Roy Emerson as the most-decorated men’s tennis champion, with 13 major titles. (Sampras added the United States Open crown in 2002, long after most people had given him up for gone.)
These two weeks, when Wimbledon dominates the sports headlines, are the only time, Sampras said, that he misses tournament tennis.
"Centre Court, there's no other place like it," he said. "It just gives you a buzz."
The 2000 Wimbledon crown was Sampras's fourth in a row, but it was anything but routine. "It was a tough two weeks," he said. He was hospitalized in the first week with a shin injury that continued to bother him despite cortisone injections and acupuncture treatments. At one point, he told his girlfriend, Bridgette, who is now his wife, that he might have to withdraw from the tournament.
Then there were the elements. The weather was so foul that it renewed cries for a retractable roof to be built over Centre Court, and indeed, the project was completed this year. Sampras’s final against Rafter was delayed by rain and interrupted twice by it. The match took more than six hours to complete and came close to being suspended because of darkness.
During one rain delay, Sampras said he asked for another cortisone injection because he could feel the first one wearing off, only to be told it was not an option.
"I knew then I was going to have to tough it out," Sampras said. After he did, winning by 6-7 (10), 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-2, he grew teary.
"The record means so much to me," Sampras said then. "Time will tell if it will be broken. I think in the modern game, it could be very difficult."
The next year, Sampras was eliminated from Wimbledon in the fourth round by a teenager with more tools than a Swiss Army knife. The 19-year-old who pulled off the seismic upset was Federer, the No. 15 seed, who prevailed 7-6 (7), 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5, and pronounced it "the best win of my life."
Sampras saw that day a player with the ability to someday surpass his record.
"But I didn’t know then if he had the whole package: the game, the heart and the mind," he said.
In 2003, Federer won his first major title, at Wimbledon. By 2006, Sampras had accepted that he would not hold the record for 33 years, as Emerson had. His reign would be short-lived.
"To put up the numbers I did, I knew it was going to take someone who’s not just a great player but also willing to give up some of his life, sort of eat, breathe and live the sport," Sampras said. "Roger is willing to sacrifice and be a great champion."
Of course Sampras would have liked for his record reign to outlive him.
"Absolutely," he said. "But I can honestly say I don't have an issue with Roger passing me. He gets the job done and does it with class."
He added, "I won 14, which is 14 more than I ever thought I’d win."
One aspect of standing alone at the summit is largely overlooked: the isolation. "It was very lonely," Sampras said.
To succeed in the majors, he needed to marshal his energy and concentration. He recalled holing himself up in the house he rented in Wimbledon Village, eating meals prepared for him by his chef, watching rented movies and playing matches over and over in his head.
The solitude that was his companion during his playing days is gone, replaced by the organized chaos of life with two children. Sampras and Bridgette, an actress whose focus is raising her children, have a trampoline in their backyard, for days like Friday, when the boys were bouncing off the walls. It had been a particularly up-and-down morning, replete with timeouts and tears.
"It might be a long summer," Sampras said with a chuckle.
His children, he said, are not interested in sports camps. They are happy to hit tennis balls, but only if their dad is on the other side of the net. They will hit golf balls as long as Sampras is serving as their caddie (they especially like sand traps, which they treat as sandboxes).
Sampras described his boys as homebodies. Ryan, with his dark mop of hair and dark eyes, bears the greater physical resemblance to Sampras; Christian appears to have inherited his temperament.
"He is a creature of habit," Sampras said. "He doesn't like change." He added: "Christian's like I was as a kid. He's much more sensitive and reserved."
At the house after lunch, Sampras and his wife were trying to persuade Christian to sit still long enough for a photographer to take a few pictures. Christian wriggled out of his clutches. Running down the hall in his stocking feet, he shouted, "I don’t want my picture in the newspaper."
That, right there, seemed like the perfect snapshot.
Source: New York Times
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