Pete Sampras says he`s got plenty of winners remaining
April 2002
Let them talk. Let them all take their shots, their verbal overheads, whacking him around as if he were a club-level hack, not the greatest player to hold a racket.
Pete Sampras has heard the disses, the retirement chatter, the incessant references to his title drought, now up to 25 tournaments and dating to the 2000 Wimbledon, when he captured his record-breaking 13th Grand Slam title.
He has heard Yevgeny Kafelnikov pipe up from across the world last month, after Sampras blew a two-set lead on grass to Alex Corretja in a Davis Cup match against Spain, the worst moment of Sampras' career.
Pate Sampras is not ready for the old folks' home just yet.
"That loss should tell him something, and it's a disrespect to himself to keep playing," Kafelnikov said.
Everyone's entitled to an opinion. Sampras, currently ranked No. 12, has one of his own. "I know it's easy to write me off," he says. "The majority of people may have written me off. That's fine. I'm not worrying about what people are saying or writing. When I do win another Slam, it's going to feel better than anything I've ever done."
Pete Sampras is 30 years old, and has spent a career being an enigmatic genius, winning majors, concealing emotions, making a fuss over almost nothing. Suddenly he is in the crosshairs of public opinion, most of it seemingly disparaging.
"When you've done what he's done, the only time you're news is when you lose," says Paul Annacone, Sampras' former coach. It is beyond debate that Sampras has arrived at his tennis twilight. After a record six-year run as the year-ending No. 1 (1993-98), he hasn't held the top spot since Nov. 19, 2000. Last year was the first time since 1992 he did not win at least one major. He's already lost seven times this year.
Twelve days ago here, at the U.S. Clay Court Championships, he needed a late rally to escape the first round against Jan Vacek, a Czech who had won once all year.
"The gap (between Pete and other players) has been reversed," says veteran Todd Martin. "A lot of guys are better than him now."
Nonetheless, Sampras believes he can summon enough serve-and-volley artistry, enough running forehands and down-the-line backhands to pick up a couple of more Grand Slam titles.
The question is whether this is the voice of a champion's confidence, or a fading star's delusion.
Sampras will begin his least-favorite time of year, the clay-court season, this month in Europe. Then it's on to his beloved grass, and hardcourts. Soon enough the question will be answered.
"If I had any doubts, I'd be lying on a beach right now," Sampras says.
He is sitting on a leather sofa in the players' lounge at Houston's West Side Tennis Club, a day after beating Vacek. He's just finished a hitting session. A big ice pack is strapped to his right shoulder. He's wearing white shorts and a white T-shirt, and has flip-flops on his feet, talking about the shakeups he has wrought in his tennis world.
For most of the 1990s, Sampras was as reliable and unchanging as any superstar in sports, both in his dominance and his demeanor. While Andre Agassi was going through his various incarnations, falling in and out of passion for the game, Sampras was a fixture, showing up with his understated attire, his hangdog bearing and the same racket — a Wilson Pro Staff model — he's used since 1988. Typically he'd leave with the biggest check and a trophy over his head, his brilliance so routine it often was accused of being boring.
Sampras is a man who likes the comfort of familiarity, so it was no small development to see his work life in such upheaval over the winter. First he split with Annacone. Then he hired Tom Gullikson, his friend and twin brother of Tim Gullikson, who was Sampras' coach before succumbing to brain cancer in 1996, only to switch again just two months later, this time to Jose Higueras.
Sampras also left his agent Jeff Schwartz in favor of Jill Smoller, and then parted with Nike for awhile in a dispute over money, since patched up.
"You don't make changes when things are going well," Martin says.
Sampras doesn't disagree. To him, the coaching moves were a must.
"I felt that I needed a different push," he says. "Paul and I had gotten to be really good friends. I think I needed a different perspective — someone a little separate."
It was the same yearning that compelled Sampras to break with Gullikson, not long after he lost in the fourth round of the Australian Open against Marat Safin. Sampras wanted a fresh voice, someone to push him hard, without hesitation.
"I think he's in terrific hands with Jose," says Annacone, who is now head of the USA Tennis high-performance program.
A noted taskmaster, Higueras worked briefly with Sampras about 13 years ago — right around the time Higueras was helping Michael Chang capture the French Open at age 17. Higueras, based in Palm Springs, Calif., firmly believes there's no substitute for court time. Sampras is now playing three to four hours a day — double the amount he used to practice.
"If you look at history, all great players go through a point in their careers where they may lose a little motivation, get a little unfocused," Higueras says.
Trainer Brett Stephens has been working with Sampras for 31/2 years. He says the three months they put in between the 2001 Open and the start of 2002 were the most intense and productive sessions they've had.
"There's no doubt in my mind he's more committed than he's ever been," Stephens says.
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It was at last summer's Wimbledon, site of seven of his Slam titles and his favorite tennis place on earth, that reports of Sampras' demise began to gain serious momentum. He was patchy in a second-round triumph over British journeyman Barry Cowan, then lost to Switzerland's Roger Federer in the fourth round.
Despite a stirring run to the U.S. Open final that included his epic quarterfinal against Agassi and victories over three defending champions (Patrick Rafter, Agassi and Safin), Sampras' straight-set loss to Lleyton Hewitt in the title match provided more fuel.
But those defeats were nothing compared with the shot heard round the net world: Sampras' grass-court, Davis Cup loss to Corretja, a Spanish clay-court maestro who hadn't won a match on the green stuff in nearly six years. Back at the Clay Court Championships, Sampras runs a hand through his thinning hair and smiles a faint, crooked smile. The result rocked him, too. It was not the outcome he was looking for, not after a five-year hiatus from Davis Cup.
For two or three days he could barely sleep. He watched TV, moped around his Beverly Hills home. His wife, Bridgette Wilson, tried to boost his spirits, but nothing much was doing it.
"I felt totally deflated," Sampras says. "I didn't feel like doing anything. There were moments when I asked myself how much more I want to play — that's how down I was."
Sampras' decline traces to several factors, not least of which is the rise of a new generation of huge talents and fierce hitters, Hewitt, Federer and Andy Roddick, among them. "The biggest difference now is that everybody else is better, and because of that, Pete's not winning as much and not in control as much, so his confidence has suffered," Martin says. And because he's not regularly going so deep in tournaments, he's not as competitively sharp.
Most tennis insiders say Sampras doesn't cover the court as he once did, a lost half-step that can be the difference between an angled winner or a shot that merely goes over the net.
Sampras' serve is still one of the premier weapons in the game, but not quite what it was, either. Two years ago, he won 91% of his service games; this year it's down to 86%. His break-points saved percentage has dipped to 65% from 73% in the same span.
Even for a player as great as Sampras, the margin of victory is often small. The upshot has been closer matches, more losses and an erosion of his aura of invincibility.
"That's what I'm trying to do here — get my confidence back, my aura back. That's my goal, and my challenge," Sampras says.
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After his shaky start against Vacek in Houston, Sampras would go on to his first final since last September's Open, pulling off a resounding semifinal upset of Agassi on clay, before losing to Roddick.
Roddick has heard how quick people have been to dismiss Sampras. "I think it's pretty ridiculous, considering that he was in the finals of the U.S. Open last year," Roddick says. "I think people are getting a little too far ahead of themselves. It's like Michael Jordan coming back. He's just set the bar so high. He's probably the greatest player ever, so people are going to (judge him) differently."
Says Higueras, "You don't forget how to play tennis when you reach 30. It's crazy to say that a player like Sampras, if he's healthy and wants to do it, can't (win more major tournaments). If I didn't think he could, I'd tell him."
Pete Sampras believes he is judged more harshly than anyone in the game, and he's probably right. With a deep reserve and emotional equanimity, his playing persona has never been cuddly or charismatic. He'd ply his champion's craft behind a stoic face and eyebrows as thick as electrician's tape, mystery man in baggy whites, bearing dazzling weaponry. It could be that his recent falloff may endear him to people in a way that his Slams never did. What a novel concept: Pete Sampras as underdog.
"People have always underestimated Pete," Annacone says. "He's made it look so easy that people can't relate to it. People see guys like Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors, grunting and scrambling, and they understand that. Pete is an artist. He's poetry in motion. He just kind of flows, so people don't see the heartfelt intensity.
"Sometimes we don't relish what we have in our athletes until they're gone," Annacone says.
Sampras takes off the ice pack, and stretches his right shoulder. Rackets at his side, naysayers circling like buzzards, he smiles and stands up.
"I believe in myself as much as I ever have," he says. "I
still feel there are one or two last hurrahs."
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