January 1997
The man who saved tennis from itself
By Peter Bodo
I'm not sure that tennis ever needed saving, but going on the assumption that it did, I'll say this: If Pete Sampras did not save the game in 1996, then tennis is beyond salvation.
If anyone who paid even cursory attention to the climax of the Grand Slam season at the U.S. Open still thinks that Sampras lacks personality, or that tennis is boring, or that the game "needs" a new Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe, I have a little advice for you: Give up on tennis. Switch to pay-per-view broadcasts of Ultimate Fighting. Delve into the secret world of snuff movies. Drive around waiting for a horrible car crash to occur.
If major corporations can continually face the painful reality of "downsizing," surely the tennis establishment can see the imprudence of its desire to be all things to all people in an endless --- and fruitless --- attempt to capture Everyman.
It took a classy guy to convince us that it's about time that tennis stopped feeling guilty about being a classy sport. Sampras's performance in 1996 was one of the great sports stories of our time. His quarterfinal encounter at Flushing Meadow with Alex Correjta has been deemed "unforgettable" by everyone who saw it, but it was just part of a larger, richer drama that transpired over the course of an entire year, ending only when Sampras finally beat Michael Chang in the title match. It was the first Grand Slam event Sampras won since the death in early 1996 of his coach and close friend Tim Gullikson.
Yet even in Sampras's finest moment, in that touching, long-awaited and bitterly fought-for moment of expiation, there were critics. Those who said that the match between Sampras and Correjta demonstrated that for a world-class athlete, Sampras was embarrassingly out of shape. Those who said they were getting "tired" of all the talk about Gullikson, implying that a marginally fit Sampras was using Gullikson's death, and the emotions and pressures it created, as a cop-out every time he lost an important tennis match. It's an ugly idea, but even that kind should stand some examination.
The first complaint was interesting in that it rested on a remarkable fallacy. Any reasonably fit tennis player --- even an avid club player --- can play a five-set match under the conditions that prevailed during the Sampras-Corretja encounter. If Sampras was merely out of shape, he would have gradually lost a step on the way to his forehand, or been a sticky moment late in getting to that half volley. Out-of-shape athletes lose energy and power the same way that leaky tires lose air. As a match goes on, they gradually go flat.
Against Corretja, Sampras did not go flat, he broke an axle. That he was able to limp on and win was a remarkable feat of will. Why Sampras broke down --- and he has done so on a number of occasions --- raises some interesting questions and issues about his future.
The second complaint was callous and shallow. By the time the 1996 U.S. Open rolled around, the thing Sampras needed more than anything else was a sense of what now travels under the name "closure." After making a valiant effort at the first Grand Slam meeting after the death of Gullikson, a listless Sampras lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the semifinals of the French Open. A few weeks later, he was upset by an inspired Richard Krajicek at Wimbledon.
All along, everybody said that after an appropriate period of mourning, Sampras had to get on with his life. And everyone, including Sampras, knew that to be true. But because of the relationship between Sampras and Gullikson, "appropriate period" meant one thing and one thing only: the length of time that it took Sampras to win a Grand Slam title in honor of his former coach.
So what now for Sampras, in 1997? He is 25, and he won his first Grand Slam event at Flushing Meadow in 1990. Physically, he is still in his prime. But the record book shows that very few champions of the Open era were dominant players for longer than six years. McEnroe played on the pro tour for a full 15 years, but he appeared in all the Grand Slam finals he ever contested between 1979 and 1985. Bjorn Borg won 10 of his 11 Grand slam titles in a seven-year span. Connors had five extra-ordinary years (1974 to '78) backed with a remarkable resurgence in two later years, 1982 and '83. Even Ivan Lendl, an iron man of the Open era, only won Grand Slam events between 1984 and 1990.
Basically, life at the very top is tough and just weird enough to be unsustainable. After five or six years there, most champions have reaped all of the rewards and exhausted all of the challenges. And that's just where Sampras may have a great opportunity denied to his illustrious predecessors. None of them were hampered by the inexplicable break-downs (vs. Corretja) or shutdowns (vs. Kafelnikov) that Sampras sometimes experiences. The challenge of identifying and overcoming the source of those tendencies may be impossible or unappealing to Sampras. Or it may be just the thing he needs to catch a second wind at a crucial time, to shatter the six-year limit on greatness.
"Something must happen inside of Pete," surmised Nick Bollettieri after the Corretja match. "He must tighten up in a way that affects everything, including his muscles and his concentration. I believe he trains hard, and Todd Snyder [Sampras's trainer] knows what he's doing. There's definitely a mystery there somewhere."
Tim Gullikson's surviving brother Tom is a little closer to the Sampras camp, and he is surprisingly outspoken about this issue: "I'd love to see Pete dedicate himself to getting into shape in a way similar to what Lendl did just before his great years. There was a lot of pressure on Pete this year [1996], but fitness is one of the tools you can use to deal with that pressure."
"You have to be very self-motivated to achieve maximum fitness. It has nothing to do with talent, nothing to do with athletic ability. It's just hard work that anybody can do. Most important, it's something that Pete can and should do. Not for Tim, but only for himself."
Actually, I think Pete should do it for me. And for you. And for tennis fans everywhere. It isn't as if Sampras hasn't done enough for the game already, but wouldn't it be great to see him extend the period of his greatness for a few more years? Tennis may not have a Connors or a McEnroe these days, but it does have a Sampras. And to my way of thinking, that's about all that it needs.