Old adage brought artistically to life
Sampras offers a reminder of the value of bending the knees
July 9, 2000
As anyone will tell you, the secret is in the knees. It doesn't matter whether the task at hand is a slalom turn or a strike in a 10-pin bowling alley, a cover drive or a pass from the base of the scrum. Keep the knees bent. A simple but painful process of flexion and extension. Or, as generations of Alpine ski instructors have scolded generations of reluctant British novices, "Bend zee knees." And nobody, no one in any sport anywhere in the world, understands the importance of that message better than Pete Sampras.
Bending the knees is not a glamorous business. This is not what people take up sport to do. It carries no satisfaction in itself, like the feeling that might be had from angling the racket into a beautifully feathered drop volley. It is the cause, rather than the effect. No one applauds it. But without it there is nothing.
All champions know this. On the eve of the women's singles final, the two-time champion Althea Gibson sent a message from her home in East Orange, New Jersey to Venus Williams, via Zina Garrison.
It wasn't passed on, in the event, because Garrison thought it best not to add distractions to Venus's preparation routine. But what it said was that she should be sure to keep her knees bent. Despite the advent of hi-tech rackets, energy drinks and bleep tests, some things never change.
Sampras's form was in and out in the first couple of sets of his rain-interrupted singles final against Patrick Rafter last night. It took him nine break points before he managed to convert one, an extraordinarily high number and, of course, that represented a compliment to his opponent's resolve. On the way Sampras missed a lot of relatively simple stuff that he had worked hard to set up.
Rafter's second serve, with its big kick, was a particularly vital test, and the defending champion set himself to solve its puzzle, particularly when it came to his backhand side in the advantage court.
What he is doing is creating the kind of sporting perfection that forces us to think in terms of beauty.He would stretch himself high to get on top of it before chopping across it at a sharp angle, making it dip to meet the incoming server at ankle height, forcing him to stretch and turn and bend and then hit a shot while moving at top speed. It was an absorbing and impressive sight, the product of a first-class tennis mind working overtime.
But it was nothing compared to the sight of what happened on the first point of the fourth game of the second set, with Rafter serving at 7-6, 1-2, when Sampras returned the Australian's second serve and found the ball coming back from a brisk half- volley, deep into his backhand corner.
He moved across to his left, getting lower as he ran, and when he pulled his racket back across his body and then let fly with the shot, his knees were almost scraping the dusty earth on the baseline.
The ball flashed across the net on the lowest possible trajectory and past Rafter at something that must have been close to the speed of electricity, a pale green flash in the dusk, seeming to leave the streak of an after-image in the air.
When Sampras does that kind of thing, it makes you forget about his strange shambling gait and supposed lack of personality. What he is doing is creating the kind of sporting perfection that forces us to think in terms of beauty.
Such a moment exists outside of its competitive context, and has a value of its own, an aesthetic value which is eventually converted into pure memory, divorced from the moment of its creation and tied simply to the remembrance of its maker.
The crowd sighed in wonder and something close to ecstasy as Sampras hit that shot. They had come for a contest between two terrific players, but they had been given a piece of sublime artistry.
One day the details of last night's match will fade into a simple scoreline, a thing of names and numbers engraved on a silver dish.
But those who were there last night will remember the moment when Pete
Sampras gave himself a reminder of what he can do when he bends his knees.