French Open Preview: Sampras Keeps Up Search for His Game
May 26, 2002
Losing over and over again is not fun, sort of like being continuously punched in the face. Professional athletes are articularly wrecked by this kind of torture; those who are extremely accomplished often find they simply can't handle it after a while, preferring instead to retire.
It is strange, then, to see Pete Sampras, week after week, month after month, still trying to find his tennis game, especially on clay. Venus Williams dropped out of a recent clay-court tournament because she said she injured her wrist picking up her suitcase; Martina Hingis, all of 21 years old, recently contemplated retirement after being told she'd need to undergo foot surgery.
"Sure, there are going to be questions, a pessimistic tone, but I no doubt believe I am going to win another major, and if it happens, it'll maybe be the greatest of my career."The 30-year-old Sampras, on the other hand, has continued to show up on the ATP circuit, even though he hasn't won a title in nearly two years, even though when the French Open begins on Monday, he will be setting off on his 13th and perhaps most improbable attempt to win the one Grand Slam title he doesn't own.
There are many who feel this is a bit boneheaded -- former No. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov, for example, has said "it's a disrespect to himself to keep playing." Others think Sampras's endeavors have a sad, Willie Mays-in-twilight quality.
Personally, Sampras sees it all as industrious, maybe even a little noble. "Sure, there are going to be questions, a pessimistic tone, but I no doubt believe I am going to win another major, and if it happens, it'll maybe be the greatest of my career," he said from Germany in a recent telephone interview. "It's what drives me. It keeps me going."
More than a dozen years after his stunning breakthrough at the U.S. Open, Sampras has realized he can no longer treat victory like a divine right; he is now just another blue-collar laborer, a player whose best hope is that work and luck and timing can all hit on a particular week. He can't simply show up with his mammoth serve anymore -- it is not as consistent as it once was, and even when it is sharp, he is no longer tossing intimidation over the net along with the ball, and that was always half his power. He can't try to just serve-and-volley his way out of his troubles either, especially not on clay, where the soft dirt absorbs the angles he tries to play.
Instead, conditioning, along with rebuilt confidence, must be the backbone of his game, and those can only be achieved through work and repetition. It is the secret Andre Agassi, a year-and-a-half Sampras's senior, has employed to stay among the tennis world's elite, and Sampras believes that kind of salvation is possible for him as well. It is the reason he is willing to keep showing up, wading through all the defeats and indignities.
"Pete is at the tough stage in a great player's career, when you have to really think about what you want to do," said Jose Higueras, the former clay-court veteran who Sampras has hired to coach him this year. "He's decided he wants to keep playing, and that means work. It means a lot of work."
And a lot of living with failure -- Sampras started the year with a fourth-round loss to Marat Safin at the Australian Open. His early spring was highlighted with a third-round loss to a Chilean qualifier in Miami and a shocking Davis Cup loss on grass to Spaniard Alex Corretja, an experience he later called one of the most deflating of his career. And while he seemed to rebound a few weeks later by beating Agassi on his way to the final in Houston, his title hopes fell short when he lost the trophy to Andy Roddick.
Not much has improved since Sampras came to Europe for the heart of the
clay-court season; he lost in the first round in Rome, he lost in the first
round in Hamburg and he lost on the opening day of last week's
round-robin World Team Championships in Dusseldorf. "I play my best
tennis on instinct, but on clay, I tend to overthink it," he said.
The losses have backed him into something of a corner. "To come into a tournament like the French Open without getting a roll of matches together is hard. I kind of feel like I'm on the edge here," he said.
"But I also know that eventually, all the work I'm doing is going to pay off."
Much of that work is the product of his new partnership with Higueras, a man who himself twice reached the semifinals of the French Open in the early 1980s and then guided Michael Chang to the French Open title in 1989. A noted taskmaster, Higueras is known for his love of drills, simulated match play and more drills.
The day after Sampras was ousted in Hamburg, Higueras shepherded him on to a plane to Paris so he could take a few days to practice on the courts of Roland Garros. Sampras is not unfamiliar with the terrain; he has been competing in the French Open since he was a teenager. But Higueras figured the extra turn on the turf could only do his pupil good, and the experience in fact seemed to season Sampras's psyche.
On the mostly deserted grounds, Sampras signed autographs for the kids, a smiled at the 13-year-old girls who collapsed into giggles at his mere presence, left his sweat on a court he hopes this year will be kinder to him, despite that his name is no longer even whispered among those favored for the French Open title.
Instead, the names on everyone's lips belong to players like Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero, who has made the semifinals at Roland Garros the last two years, and Argentina's Gaston Gaudio, who earlier this month racked up 13 straight clay-court victories, a stretch that included titles in Barcelona and Mallorca. Of the American men, both Agassi, who won in Rome two weeks ago, and Roddick seem to be coming into the tournament on stronger footing than Sampras.
On the women's side, defending champion Jennifer Capriati is the favorite, having won three of the past five Grand Slams. Serena Williams has also come on as a serious clay-court threat after reaching the finals of the German Open and then winning the Italian Open. And while Hingis (foot) and Lindsay Davenport (knee) will be missing with injuries, Venus Williams is expected to try to overcome her wrist problems and make a run at winning the tournament as well.
That all of this leaves Sampras as something of an afterthought is not threatening to the 13-time Grand Slam champion. "There was a time when it almost became, not too easy, but when it all went my way, and I know that it's not like that anymore," he said. As for critics like Kafelnikov, he said, "The day anything Yevgeny says worries me or affects me, that will be the day I will stop playing."
Instead, Sampras remains convinced that everything he is now putting himself through will one day be worthwhile. The hours of running drills with Higueras, the humiliations in countless European cities -- if he endures enough, he believes, he can earn back at least a chunk of his former self. It was only eight months ago that he put together a sterling run through the U.S. Open, and even his last Grand Slam title, the 2000 Wimbledon crown, came after many had counted him out.
Besides, almost as much as through any victory, he has shown his toughness these last few months simply by showing up, week after week.
"The game is still there," he said. "Maybe not as consistently as it once was, but I still feel like it's in my sights. It's certainly something I'm willing to work for."
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