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| US TENNIS January, 1996 Until last year, Pete Samras's path in life and tennis had been smooth... "...And Then, Boom Everything Just Changed" Interview: David Higdon |
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This interview, conducted over the course of a long, hot day in California, was split in half when Pete Sampras darted off to play golf in Newport Beach. Our discussion mirrored his l995 season: lots of downs at first, plenty of ups in the end. During this month last year at the Austrarian Open, his coach, Tim Gullikson was stricken by what later was determined to be brain cancer. Months later, Sampras's No.1 ranking slipped away, and with it his confidenee. He failed to win a single match during the clay-court season, including a first-round loss at the French Open. But familiar turf, the grass courts at Wimbledon, provided the perfect antidote for his game. He won his third consecutive title there, then proceeded to win his third career U.S. Open title. In November, after winning the Paris Open indoors, he again took over the No.1 ranking. This month, he returns to Melbourne, where the most trying period in his career began. |
TENNIS: In Europe in late 1994 your coach, Tim Gullikson, collapsed once and was taken to the hosptal on a second occasion. In Sweden in October, he fell through a glass table. Two months later, he had been diagnosed with having suffered two strokes. Was his condition worrying you at the start of the year? Sampras: Yes, but in Stockholm, he was on this diet. He wasn't really eating that well, so I figured he had fainted. In Munich, it happened again. We really needed to figure out what was going on. They checked him out and thought he had something wrong with his heart. Then in Australia, that's when it really got serious. TENNIS: Describe what happened on Januayy 20. Sampras: I hit with Gully in the morning. I was getting ready to play Lars Jonsson in the third round. Gully had some scars from his [Stockholm] accident. That morning, he looked pale and I could really see his scars. From across the net, he just didn't look right. He was looking right through you. After we hit, he was going to get my racquets and I went to meet him in the locker room. I was just sitting down right like this, getting some racquets ready, and he just dropped the racquets that he was holding. I looked up and I said: "Tim, are you O.K.?" He said: "Yeah." You could see, though. He walked away and he walked back and he said to me: "I need to see the doctor." I said: "O.K." He went to the doctor's room. I went to get [his twin brother] Tom. The doctor took a look at Tim and he immediately got rushed to the hospital. I just thought: Wow, this is the third time this has happened. It was so strange to me because before Tim left for Australia, all the doctors in Chicago said, "You're O.K. You'll have no problems going overseas." Then it happened and it was like, God, it was such a strange feeling. TENNIS: You had to play your match. Sampras: And I played Jonsson. I was playing really well, but I couldn't stop thinking: What's going on? What's going on with Tim? I won my match, then went straight to the hospital. I think he had an IV in him. Graham [Moore, Gullikson's friend] was there. Ian [Hamilton, Nike's director of tennis sports marketing] was there. Todd [Snyder, an ATP Tour trainer] and Paul [Annacone] came and saw him. [My girlfriend] Delaina was there. TENNIS: You had a day off after your win over Jonsson, then you beat Magnus Larsson after losing the first two sets. Next up was Jim Courier in the quarterfinals. Lead us up to that match. Sampras: Tim flew back to the States that day. I just went out and prepared like any other match. But I had heard something. I had heard something from someone about a tumor. [Gullikson was diagnosed as having four tumors on his brain.] I don't remember who told me. It was almost to the point where Tim and Tom didn't want me to know what was going on. For a couple of days there, Tom and Tim were very emotional and very upset. It was tough to see Tim and Tom like that. I was trying to stay as strong as possible, to keep things to myself as I always do, to keep it inside of me and try to stay strong. I was playing Jim and I lost the first two sets. I was playing fine, but Jim was playing well at that point. [Sampras pauses for a moment.] Um... I'm just trying to gather my thoughts. I won the third, I won the fourth. Then, boom, it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had this mental picture of Tim crying, of Tom crying. For some reason, after I won the fourth set, I was choked up and... I started crying. I was really having a hard time regaining my composure for like three games. I was trying not to, but it was coming out of me. I had absolutely no control over it. It felt good that I was getting rid of it. I was releasing it all. I just had this all inside of me. Everything just hit at that point, and I cried. There was a lot of emotion in the match. Losing the first two sets, coming back. I thought of Tim, I thought about how much... you know... if he would have been there. Just the moment. I remember on the changeover, I asked Todd to come out. I asked him what to do and he said: "Just take deep breaths:" I was hyperventilating. He said: "It's O.K." He put some water on my face. TENNIS: How did you... Sampras: I snapped out of it. I was getting ready to hit a serve and I looked at Jim. I backed off. I was cracking again. And he said: "Pete, are you O.K.? Do you want to take a break and do this tomorrow?" I think he thought I was cramping. I wasn't sure if he was giving me a hard time, or what he was doing. From that point on, it snapped and I was pissed. I got really pissed when he said that, because I figured he knew why I was crying, because of Tim's situation. I wasn't cramping. From that point on, I said: "I gotta start playing. I need... I want to win this match for Tim. And I'm going to do what I can to win this match." That was it. TENNIS: What do you think Jim was trying to do? Sampras: I don't know if he was joking around, or if he was just giving me a hard time. TENNIS: Have you talked to him about it at all? Sampras: No. Not really. I think he might have said something after the match, but I didn't really pay much attention to it. TENNIS: What was it like the next day? Sampras: So many things were running through my mind. In a way, when I was walking around the site the next day, I almost felt a little bit embarassed that I actually cracked. I don't know why. I told that to Paul and he said: "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard you say. You're human and you have emotions." I said: "But on the court, I want to be strong and fit and show no emotion and play my tennis." TENNIS: What kind of reactions were you getting? Sampras: I've gotten many letters and many fans have come up to me and said: "That's one of the most courageous things I've ever seen." The emotion they felt watching it: They were crying while I was crying. That really hit home. That made me feel real good. I learned a lot about myself. I showed some emotion that no one's ever seen before. It was flattering to hear people commenting about it, but it's always been there. It almost took me crying on the court for people to see that Pete's finally human. TENNIS: That loss to Agassi in the final seemed to turn on the third-set tie-break. You had set points, but you couldn't win it. Sampras: It was a hot day. In the second and the third sets, I was starting to suck some wind. If I had won the third, then maybe I could have won the fourth. But... the level of tennis wasn't where it should have been. TENNIS: Have you been around much illness before? Sampras: I remember seeing my dad cry when his sister got diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 10 or 11. That vision is still with me. But I'm older now and It's a little different. I remember talking to my dad. He's lost both his parents; he lost two sisters at a pretty young age. We were just talking about tennis, and life, and how tennis is great when you're winning but you're kind of blind to reality some times. And we just talked about how through my whole life everything has been so smooth. Everything goes well and this is the first time that I've had a good friend go through some health trouble. It put everything into perspective. TENNIS: How would you describe your relationship with Gullikson? Sampras: He's one of my closest friends. I don't have a ton of close friends. If a room full of people, and I look over at Tim, we just kind of smile at each other. There's that connection we have that I don't have with a lot of people. In Las Vegas [for the Davis Cup semifinals, Gullikson's first appearance at a pro tennis event since Australia], we looked at each other and we smiled. ... He's such a great father, such a great person. Such an outgoing guy. He's one of the nicest people I've ever been involved with in my tennis. Just the thought of not having the opportunity to talk to him on the phone, of him not being involved in my tennis, breaks my heart. TENNIS: One of the by-products of your match with Agassi in Australia was it unofficially kicked off your rivalry with him. He beat you in Melbourne, you beat him at Indian Wells, he beat you at Lipton and then you went into this... Sampras: Funk. TENNIS: Right. You lost the No. 1 ranking to him on April 10. Then you lost that week in the first round at Barcelona. Things weren 't looking good. Sampras: I wasn't happy about losing the No. 1 ranking, but it wasn't the end of the world. I just lost all my points. I went to Palermo for the second round of Davis Cup at the end of March. That might have taken a lot out of me. My batteries were still burning on low and I went to Barcelona, lost early, went home, went to Monte Carlo, sprained my ankle, went home, went back over to Rome, lost first round, went home, and at that point, after Rome, I was disappointed, but the French was always there. We all prepare differently for majors. I went to the French and I was prepared. Lost a tough match to [Gilbert] Schaller. That's how the whole clay-court season went. TENNIS: Last year, you played more clay-court events than you have in the past. Will you play fewer in '96? Sampras: I'm not doing that next year. I tried something different to play better on clay and it didn't work out. I was over there for two months before the French and I think I got into a mindset of playing like a [Thomas] Muster instead of playing like [Stefan] Edberg. My strength kind of disappeared over there. I wasn't serving-and-volleying, I was staying back. The fact that I was on clay so long probably didn't help. TENNIS: You said after the French that the loss would sit with you for quite a while. Did it? Sampras: Yeah. I was depressed. You lose in the first round of Rome, you get over it. Because I put so much emphasis on the majors, especially one for which I changed my schedule, I went home and I was really depressed and moping around. It took me a couple of weeks to bounce back out of it. TENNIS: What are you like when you're depressed? Sampras: I'm pretty irritable. I was feeling a little sorry for myself at that point, which I haven't felt in quite a while. After three or four days of talking to Tim and Paul, they just kept on saying: "Let's try to be positive about this whole thing, try to put this behind us and go to Wimbledon with a whole new attitude." Everyone was great: my parents, Delaina. Delaina was great the whole time. The grass is a whole new ballgame for me. When I got to London, I started practicing on the grass and my whole attitude changed. I was eager to practice and play. I talked to Tim quite a bit on the phone. TENNIS: Were you looking forward to playing Agassi in the Wimbledon final instead of Boris Becker? Sampras: Once Andre was up a set and 4-1 on Becker, I was preparing myself to play him. I was driving to my hotel. I came though my door, turned on the TV and all of a sudden Becker was up in the fourth. I was like: "What happened?" Becker broke back and Andre got a little tight. That can happen on grass, especially if you stay back. But at that point, when I left the club, I was thinking about the match tomorrow and what I'm going to do against Andre. It would have been nice to walk out with Andre because it's always different when we play each other, whether it's the final of Montreal or Wimbledon. We've got a lot of competitive juices. Our egos are on the line. This is two Americans going at it. That was what I was looking forward to, the chance to beat the best. I'm not saying Becker wasn't the best, but you dream of playing Andre in the final of Wimbledon. TENNIS: How much did Wimbledon right your ship? Sampras: It saved my year. Wimbledon saved it all. No matter what would have happened at the U.S. Open, I could look back at this year as a success. When you win a major, especially the biggest one, that's a good year. TENNIS: You saved your year with Wimbledon, then you headed to the hard courts and stunk it up. Sampras: I didn't really stink it up that bad! TENNIS: Sure you did. You lost to Bernd Karbacher in the semifinals at Indianapolis, and you didn't win a single hard-court event leading up to the Open. Sampras: I was happy I got to the final of Montreal after winning Wimbledon. That was good. I was pissed I lost to Agassi, but I thought I played pretty well. In Cincinnati, I got fatigued and lost 6-1 in the third to [Michael] Stich. When you play these tournaments in the summer, you always have the U.S. Open in the back of your mind. You want to play well, you'd love to win a tournament, but it's almost like you don't want to play too well and burn yourself out. TENNIS: Is that what happened with Agassi? Sampras: This might sound weird, but he won New Haven, it's like... if you lose a match before a major, it's almost good. You don't want to use up all your luck. I remember the one year I lost in the Open final to Edberg, I won L.A., Cincy, Indy and I won something like 15 straight matches. This year, I played in Indy and lost to Karbacher and got pissed in the match. Not at him, but at myself. But you know I'm not going to get pissed off at the U.S. Open. I'm going to tough it out. That's what Tim said: "You need to grind. If you lose a set and you're not playing well, you need to grind. There's no time for excuses here. This is it." TENNIS: You didn't need any excuses, of course. You won the Open, beating Agassi in the final, then earned back your No. 1 ranking. Have you ever had a year like this? Sampras: No. It was a strange year. During the clay-court season, I wondered when things were going to get better: Am I going to come out of this? I never really deep down have questioned my ability as a player. When you start losing, though, you start questioning yourself. I learned that if I ever go through that again, I can get out of it. It gave me the confidence that if it happens again, if I don't do well next year during that time, I can bounce out of it. I feel like I have the capability of doing that with my game. TENNIS: What did you learn about yourself as a person as opposed to a player? Sampras: Everything, especially with Tim, put everything into perspective. Tennis is a great game and I'd love to win every match I play, but ultimately it's not the most important thing in life. It's your health. That's one thing my mom always told me. Things with Tim had been going so well, I was winning a lot, things were going great, our relationship was great and then boom, over the course of two to three months, everything just changed. It just opened my eyes to what can happen in life. |