September 6, 1996
Sampras survives Corretja
He loses lunch, but wins match
By Steve Wilstein, Associated Press writer
NEW YORK -- Exhausted to the point of sickness, barely able to move, forced to lean on his racket like a crutch between rallies, Pete Sampras survived an epic ordeal yesterday against indefatigable Alex Corretja.
Sampras vomited on court in the middle of the fifth-set tiebreaker and looked as if he would pass out. Yet somehow he summoned the strength to keep going and set up a second match-point with his 25th ace. Then he watched in utter relief as the Spaniard double-faulted to end one of the most dramatic matches in U.S. Open history, 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (9-7).
Corretja collapsed to his knees and Sampras slumped onto the net before they embraced each other tenderly amid a long standing ovation after the 4-hour, 9-minute struggle -- the longest match of the tournament.
Moments later, Sampras hugged his girlfriend, Delaina Mulcahy.
"This one was for Tim. Tim was there with me," he whispered to her, referring to his late coach, Tim Gullikson, who died in May.
Mulcahy said: "I feel good that Tim will be with us the rest of the way."
Everyone who watched this match had to be cringing as Sampras limped around the court, wobbling dizzily at times, trying to stay on his feet, and playing on and on. He vomited at the back of the court at 1-1 in the final tiebreaker, received a time delay warning, but came right back to win the next point.
"A lot of people saw things today that most won't see in a lifetime," Paul Annacone, Sampras' current coach, said. "Alex Corretja should get a lot of credit for what he did. What Pete did, there are no words. It was exhilarating to watch."
"The guy is pretty special, and special people do special things."
Even Corretja, who broke down and sobbed after the match of his life slipped away, was amazed by Sampras.
"I saw him at a couple of times really tired, but he was more dangerous then," the No. 31-ranked Corretja said. "At 3-3 in the tiebreaker, he served at 124 mph. If he was tired, he can't serve like that."
But that's exactly what Sampras did before going off to receive an intravenous drip for treatment of dehydration. He left more than an hour later, at 9:20 p.m., wearing sunglasses in the night and saying nothing about the match.
Sampras will have to find a way to recover by Saturday when he plays in the semifinals against Goran Ivanisevic, who sent two-time champion Stefan Edberg into retirement at night, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (11-9) after his record 54th consecutive Grand Slam tournament.
Edberg fought off four match-points before finally succumbing on the fifth, tapping a backhand half-volley into the net on Ivanisevic's crisp return of serve.
Ivanisevic, a first-round loser the past two years, served 26 aces against Edberg and will present Sampras with a much different problem in the semis. If nothing else, Sampras can look forward to shorter points.
Under a burning sun and, hours later, under the lights in the cool night, Corretja played gloriously to wear down Sampras.
The match packed almost as much drama and emotion as Sampras' victory over Jim Courier last year in the Australian Open, when Gullikson first was diagnosed with brain cancer. Sampras played through his tears that night, yet found a way to win.
And in many ways, this match also revived memories of his loss in the fourth round of the 1994 U.S. Open against Jaime Yzaga, when Sampras limped off in sheer exhaustion, his feet blistered and bleeding.
Sampras has a history of illness and heat exhaustion. He was sick to his stomach the night before he lost to Edberg in the 1992 Open final. He fell ill at the 1994 Lipton tournament, and Andre Agassi, in a gesture of sportsmanship, gave him an extra hour to recover. Sampras won. At the French Open this year, Sampras lost the first two sets to Courier, looked wobbly, yet won in five sets.
Sampras, broken in the first game of the match against Corretja, seemed in control when he broke back to 5-5 and took the tiebreaker in the middle of a run of 21 straight points that he won on serve.
That control suddenly disappeared in two crucial lapses when Corretja broke him in the 12th games of both the second and third sets.
Sampras couldn't find a way to break Corretja at all in those sets, and the Spaniard kept pounding balls from behind the baseline, making Sampras strain for every point except aces and service winners. Though not a big server in terms of speed, Corretja's accuracy and kicks enabled him to equal Sampras' 25 aces.
Corretja finally yielded on serve at 1-1 in the fourth set when Sampras began showing signs of exhaustion. Sampras bent over wearily, gasping for breath after gaining a second break-point, then recovered and put away a forehand volley to take a 2-1 lead.
Sampras started to pump his fist to punctuate that little triumph, but he held back as if he didn't have the strength to do even that. He wore a look of relief and fatigue as he walked slowly to his chair and sank down. A trainer asked him if he was all right. Sampras shook his head, and said he felt queasy. On the next changeover, the trainer returned to give Sampras some medicine.
In the fifth set, neither player yielded serve, and it was incredible to see Sampras, rubbery-legged one moment, serving at 125 mph the next. He knew he couldn't play long rallies, so he had to try to win with his serve, and in that set he came up with six aces.
"What we saw at the end of the match was his body let out," said Dr. Brian Hainline, a tournament physician.
"With his stoic personality, you wouldn't think he'd have the flair for the dramatic," Annacone said of Sampras. "When he gets through a match like that, all of us feel, Tim has a smile on his face, watching. Tim is still part of it, in a spiritual way. It's been a tough 18 months. There's a lot of emotion. I've never met anyone like Pete who can stay focused and ignore distractions to the level he can."
Corretja had one chance to win the match when he led 7-6 in the fifth-set tiebreaker. He had just fought off a match-point in Sampras' favor at 6-5, and now Corretja stood waiting to receive.
Sampras paused, leaning on his racket, then cracked a serve that Corretja kept in play. They got into a rally and Corretja drilled a forehand crosscourt that looked like a winner. Sampras lunged to his right, caught up to the ball and punched away a forehand volley to make it 7-7.
"Maybe if I played down the line, I win it. I don't know," said Corretja, searching for a way to explain how he let this match get away or how Sampras stayed in it.
He saw Sampras staggering, yet hitting an ace on his second serve to make it 8-7 in the tiebreaker.
That Corretja should lose on a double-fault, only his third of the match, was almost too much for him to contemplate.
"It was probably the best match and the worst one," he said. "I was playing for too much today. I have to feel happy because I almost knocked out the No. 1 in the world. It is really difficult, really disappointing, because you feel like you got it, and suddenly it escapes."