September 16, 2002
A GRAND Occasion
By S. L. Price
While Serena Williams blitzed the women's field, Pete Sampras won his fifth U.S. Open
and left no doubt that he's the greatest men's player ever
For so long he hadn't needed any of it: not the support of fans, not the presence or family, not the on-court histrionics. Pete Sampras did not scream, "That's what I'm talking about!" after winning a set in his prime, half a decade ago, and he didn't take his motivation from words lovingly scribbled on a piece of paper. His was a cool and lonely march to greatness, and if his body sometimes betrayed him with a strange fragility, his talent carried him time and again. He had his hair and his nerve then. Losing it all, bit by humiliating bit, didn't seem possible.
At 7:38 p.m. on Sunday, Sampras glanced across the court at his oldest rival, lifted his left arm and tossed a tennis ball up into the cooling New York night. Ahead 5-4, 30-0 in the fourth set of the most unlikely Grand Slam final of the year, two points away from a victory no one had predicted, about to hit a second serve against the greatest returner in the game, Sampras felt the wind at his back. His stomach began to churn. His mind raced: What if I miss? What if it sails? But this time, unlike so many times in the past two years, he didn't falter. He held nothing back. His right arm came slicing down, his racket strings gave off the sweet pock! and the ball flew cleanly down the T at 119 mph. Andre Agassi froze as the ace blew past him. And for the first time in years, the words appeared again in Sampras's mind: I'm going to do it.
Suddenly everyone else knew too. The crowd of 23,157 that had packed Arthur Ashe Stadium and the millions watching on TV leaned in with jaws hanging. None of it made sense. Hadn't Yevgeny Kafelnikov called for Sampras's retirement in April, saying Sampras was staining his legacy with so many losses? Hadn't Greg Rusedski, after losing a five-setter to Sampras just six days earlier, declared, "You're used to seeing Pete Sampras, 13-time Grand Slam champion. It's not the same player"? If only they knew how close the 31-year-old Sampras had come to retiring. Yet here he was, about to wrap up the U.S. Open with a victory over his fitter, higher-ranked opponent and, with his 14th Grand Slam title, confirm once again that he is the greatest man ever to play the game.
"This [title] might mean more than any of them," Sampras says. "I take pride in having the whole package --- the talent and the heart and the mind ---and if there was a year I needed that heart and mind and support, it's this year. There were moments I felt empty. To get through that, to come back and beat all these young guys and beat Andre in the final, is a fitting way to end it."
After the final was over, after Sampras had won 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, tennis great Tony Trabert announced to the fans, "The king is not dead." For that they can credit his queen. Sampras had been annoyed by all the over-the-hill talk, which had gotten louder as his winless streak grew to 33 tournaments, but nothing enraged him more than speculation that his marriage to actress Bridgette Wilson, which occurred 2 1/2 months after his last tournament victory, at Wimbledon in 2000, might be a reason. On the contrary: As the losses piled up, and Sampras shuffled coaches, and tennis became more burden than bonus to him, Bridgette was the only reason he kept going. More than once, notably after his nightmare loss to unknown George Bastl at Wimbledon this year, Sampras considered quitting. Bridgette wouldn't hear of it. "Don't believe this crap that people are saying," she told him. "Stop on your own terms. Just promise me that."
Sampras promised. "When she said that, it gave me some life," he says. "I was like, Screw these people. Just believe." Instead of walking, he rehired coach Paul Annacone and began working on the relentless, go-for-broke approach that made his run through this Open so exhilarating.
The men's tour ought to send Bridgette a thank-you-note. Fatigued by the year's over-stuffed schedule and the tour's unprecedented depth, a record 10 men quit during matches at this year's Open because of clamps or injuries. Meanwhile, the tour's next generation of stars --- defending champ Lleyton Hewitt, No. 2 Marat Safin and much-hyped Americans Andy Roddick and James Blake --- buckled in the hard-court vise of Flushing Meadows, the most punishing and the fairest test on the tennis calendar. After a year characterized by colorless Grand Slam champions such as Australian Open titlist Thomas Johansson and French Open winner Albert Costa, the prospect of a U.S. Open final featuring the sixth and 17th seeds might have plunged the ATP staff into clinical depression. But then, nobody expected those seeds to be Agassi and Sampras.
"This is the first Slam in eight years where I didn't even look at the draw to see where those guys were," said ATP trainer Doug Spreen last Saturday evening. "Show what I know."
Though Agassi, 32, had won four tournaments this year, he hadn't been to a Slam final since winning the 2001 Australian, and he hadn't gotten a big-time crack at Sampras since losing to him in a four-set classic a year ago at Flushing Meadows. But suddenly the two men sniffed one more --- and most likely one last --- Grand Slam final showdown. As lesser names dropped out and rain drummed the nerves of everyone else, Agassi and Sampras, showing none of their recent vulnerability, tunneled through the draw toward each other, greatness seeking its own level. Only late on Saturday, after the men's semifinals, did it became clear that the fates had been conspiring to unleash the closest thing tennis has to a perfect storm. The only comparable men's rivalry, John McEnroe versus Jimmy Connors, was played out over 34 matches. This would be number 34 for Agassi and Sampras.
"Did you hear that crowd?" Spreen asked Agassi after he took out the top-seeded Hewitt in the second semifinal.
"Wait till tomorrow," Agassi said.
Agassi had the tougher road in, wrestling Hewitt for just under three hours in the unseasonable heat before pinning him 6-4, 7-6, 6-7, 6-2. Sampras disposed of an out-classed Sjeng Schalken 7-6, 7-6, 6-2, but before that he had to get by one of the summer's hottest players, Rusedski; the third see, Tommy Haas; and the 20-year-old Roddick. "It's what he's been saying all along," Roddick said after being crushed by Sampras in straight sets. "I'm not done yet."
Once again Roddick failed to make much of a dent at a Slam. Aside from one astonishing point in his fourth-round match against Juan Ignacio Chela, Roddick's most endearing moment in New York was the news flash that when he and Serena Williams were preteens at the Rick Macci Tennis Academy in Florida, Williams beat him in the one match they played. "Ask him," Williams said last week. "Indirectly, I've beaten a lot of people on the men's tour."
Hey, she's earned the right to brag. A year after losing to her older sister Venus in a historic U.S. Open final, Serena decisively won Saturday night's rematch, 6-4, 6-3, taking her third straight Slam final --- each over Venus --- and forcing another shift in the women's game. Just a week ago common wisdom had the two Williamses ruling this world, jointly pushing the game to a level never imagined by Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf. "I think both Serena and Venus are even better," said Monica Seles after losing to Venus in the quarterfinals 6-2, 6-3. "I don't think Martina or Steffi could serve as hard as Serena and Venus can."
But now Serena reigns alone. A sprained ankle knocked her out of the Australian Open, but since then she has lost only three of 46 matches, all by the slimmest of margins. Clad in a skintight black cat suit, flaunting curves and muscles that could be dreamed up only by the brains at Marvel Comics, undistracted by a stalker's arrest or by her sister's feelings, the 20-year-old Serena plowed through the Open without losing a set. She fired serves so hard and deceptive that her one true challenger in Queens, Lindsay Davenport, compared her to Sampras. In the final Serena dictated with ease, overpowering the player who had taught her everything.
"Little sister's gotten a little better over the last year, hasn't she?" Trabert asked Venus on court after the drubbing. Venus stood there speechless, grinning weakly.
That the two sisters failed to replicate their stirring Wimbledon final revived worries that they can't muster the competitive fury required for great matches. But more troubling is the fact that Venus, 22, left the Open a joyless shadow of her former self. She had won three tournaments heading into the Open and would have claimed the No. 1 ranking had she won it. But she showed little vitality at Flushing Meadows. She spoke of feeling exhausted. "I just had to tune out everything --- people just wear you to death and talk so much," Venus said. "I just wanted to get away from the hype. I think Serena likes the attention."
She has liked it all year. Ever since Venus waxed her in last year's Open final, Serena has been a changed player --- taking fewer chances on her backhand, placing her serve better, using her practice sessions with Venus to learn how to win again. "It's not that I thought I could win all three [Slam titles]," Serena said on Saturday night. "I just said, 'I'm tired of losing. I'm not going to lose anymore.' Life was passing me by."
No one in tennis knows that urgency better than Agassi and Sampras. The two men --- who first faced each other at Flushing Meadows in 1990, when the 19-year-old Sampras drilled the 20-year-old Agassi in straight sets to win the first of his five Open titles --- have always been opposites in every category: personality, playing style, approach to celebrity. They are not friends, but time has made them allies as much as rivals. Together they've produced some of the finest tennis matches in history. Forever paired in the public mind, they've watched each other go bald, fall in and out of love, win big and lose plenty. Everything has changed since '90: Agassi's wife, Steffi Graf, watches his matches and minds their 10-month-old son. Bridgette Wilson Sampras is expecting a child. When the two men saw each other in the locker room on Sunday afternoon, there was no gamesmanship, just two neighbors grinning tightly and saying a quick "How ya doin'?" as they passed each other on the way to work.
In his bag Pete carried a note from Bridgette. "I'm so proud of you," she wrote. "Go out there and enjoy today and enjoy yourself, attacking him from the first point on. Continue to do what you've been doing, playing your game.... Stay strong. Find your zone. This is your house."
Sampras followed the instructions to the letter. In the first 2 1/2 sets he played as well as a geat player can, bombing in serves, attacking the net, even outhitting Agassi from the baseline. But fatigue and the ever-shifting wind wore Sampras down in the third, and Agassi, with the crowd screaming encouragement, began pounding the ball. He broke Sampras in the 12th game to take the set. In the fourth Sampras barely survived a bruising, seven-deuce service game to tie things 2-2, and he seemed completely back on his heels when, at 4-4, he unexpectedly unleashed an all-court flurry of strokes that broke Agassi. Now suddenly, he was serving for the match. Now he was hitting that second-serve ace to make it 40-0. Agassi held off one match point, but at 40-15 Sampras served and volleyed like few players do anymore, cutting a backhand volley to finish the most amazing run of his career.
"Kind of an eerie feeling," he said later. "It all happened so quickly at the end."
Time moves like that when you're older, and when summer comes to a close. Sampras threw up his arms, then dropped a hand on his head in disbelief. He went to the net and hugged Agassi, and for the first time on a tennis court Sampras told him, "You're the best I ever played." Then Sampras tossed his racket aside and climbed the stairs to where his wife stood. He grabbed her and hugged her and whispered, "I love you. Thank you. You kept me together."
Sampras doesn't know if he'll be back at the Open again. He grinned as the cheers rolled down from the stands. Agassi stood blank-faced. Young in any world but this one, the two old men stood together, faces out of a decade past. Sooner than anyone hopes, they will be gone.