Courage of ailing Sampras elevates him among greats
By David Miller
First, Kerri Strug at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, now Pete Sampras, in the U.S. Open championships. A humid American summer is having its fill of heroism in the pursuit of sport. If I live to be 100 I do not expect to witness a more courageous refusal to yield than the fifth-set tie-break in which Sampras, the defending champion, his vision blurred by sickness, defeated Alex Corretja, of Spain.
Marathon runners sometimes drag themselves to the finishing line in agony; Trautmann kept goal in an FA Cup final with a broken neck and Ali beat Norton with his jaw broken. Sampras, vomiting uncontrollably on the baseline, defeated the 22-year-old Corretja, who had had set point in every set and held match point in the riveting climax.
As Sampras tottered on the point of collapse, he was saved by the unfortunate Corretja serving a double fault on Sampras's second match point. Corretja sank to his knees in dismay, while Sampras clung to the net cord for support, waiting to shake the hand of the opponent who had brought him so low. His quarter-final victory, by 7-6, 5-7, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6, gives both men a page in history.
If Strug's famous vault in the women's team gymnastics was a single instant of willpower, like bracing for a tooth to be pulled, the defiance of Sampras, almost too sick to know what he was doing, exhibited man's instinct to delve into his soul and find unknown strength when all seems lost. The sight lifted people to their feet at Flushing Meadow in a frenzy of sympathy and admiration.
Sporting heroism mostly requires two participants. Coretja, ranked No 31 in the world, from Barcelona, had been expected to subside politely as the champion proceeded to the semi-final. Outside the stadium court beforehand, you could not give away tickets: the demand was for Stefan Edberg against Goran Ivanisevic in the evening, an encounter that would prove slight by comparison as Ivanisevic brought Edberg's grand-slam career to a nostalgic halt in straight sets.
Never previously at the quarter-final stage of a grand-slam event, Corretja pressed the three-times U.S. Open champion every stride for more than four hours, traded aces with him equally at 25 apiece, and shook him to the core when taking a two-sets-to-one lead.
Then, in the third game of the fourth set, Sampras found a window. A half-volley drop shot, played by instinct under pressure and falling dead just over the net, and a cross-court volley gave him a service break for a 2-1 lead. He clung to that opening and levelled the match.
Yet as they entered the final set, their faces a kaleidoscope of perspiration beads, it was Corretja who held the advantage of the service-game lead: 1-0, 2-1, 3-2. As he inched towards improbable triumph, Sampras grimly hung on in his wake. In the sixth game, Sampras was stretched to two deuces. Trailing 4-5 and serving to save the match, Sampras first took a medical break in the locker-room, returning in changed clothes, swallowing emptily with the gaunt look of a troubled passenger on a bumpy flight in heavy turbulence.
He held his serve with an ace on game point for 5-5. Corretja confidently served to love to lead 6-5. The match timer stood at 3hr 52min. Sampras's head, which is always cast down between points, was lower than ever. He, too, served to love and lifted his eyes skywards as if in supplication.
The fifth set tie-break, which operates in the U.S. Open, is the ultimate in ball-game Russian roulette. Sampras breaks serve for 1-0, but is then passed on his serve for 1-1. He stoops, clutches his chest and is sick, though his stomach is empty.
As he gropes towards serving the next point, the umpire, bizarrely, gives him a time warning for delay. With one more break point each, they are level at 3-3. Sampras serves an ace to lead 4-3, hits a long backhand to give Corretja 4-4. Struggling to reach a forehand pass, Corretja falls on the baseline to trail 5-4, but then hits a winning forehand pass for 5-5.
A smash brings Sampras match point but he nets a forehand for 6-6, then loses a rally to go match point down. The crowd of nearly 20,000 holds itself, bewitched as Corretja serves for the kill. Sampras returns, Corretja hits a cross-court forehand, and somehow, lunging like a man grasping at the handle of a runaway car, Sampras stretches across and blindly hits a winning volley. In the heavy night air, the crowd gasps, exhaling a thousand emotions.
Sampras gathers himself once more in nausea and his second service gives him an 8-7 lead. The cruellest of blows befalls Corretja as he double faults. "It was the best match of my career," he would say, "and the worst."