Sports Illustrated
December 11, 1995
Peter The Great
By Leigh Montville

The U.S. Davis Cup victory over Russia was
stars and stripes and Sampras forever

THE LIMITS to Pete Sampras's heroics were defined in the first half hour of his match against Andrei Chesnokov last Friday afternoon at the indoor Olympic Stadium in Moscow. A voice came over the public-address system and requested in English that the crowd, "as a courtesy to the players, please shut off all mobile telephones." The No. 1-ranked player in tennis had arrived too late to slay any ideological dragons. They all were talking to their brokers.

Facts were facts. This was the beep-beep capitalist present.

One, two, three decades ago, anytime until as recently as six years ago, the work Sampras performed last weekend in leading the U.S. to a 3-2 victory over Russia in this year's Davis Cup finals would have ranked him right up there with the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team in cold war competitive glory. He would have been a homebred, wed-fed testament to the virtues of the free-enterprise system and apple pie. Instead, he was merely the gallant warrior who refused to quit, carried off the court at the end of his three-hour, 38-minute, five-set win over Chesnokov, cramped and pained, yet returning the next day to team with Todd Martin to take the doubles and yet again the next day to be almost invincible in a 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 win over Russia's best player, 21-year-old Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

Wouldn't Richard Nixon, sports fan and president, have smiled in the '60s or '70s? Ronald Reagan would have immediately sent an invitation to the White House in the Star Wars '80s for such a triumph. But the hammers and sickles are long gone from the walls, and the daughters of the sex-bomb double agents now distribute free samples of Coca-Cola and vodka rather than look for microfilm stashed behind potted plants. Detente may be good for the world at large, but it has taken the edge off sports drama.

"I guess we're all the same now," U.S. coach Tom Gullikson said. "We're all out there looking for the same dollars."

Sampras, who has won more of those dollars than any other player this year, was not even supposed to be a big part of the finals. With the Russians choosing clay as the surface, he suggested to Gullikson that Andre Agassi and Jim Courier, both with games better suited to the slow surface, play the singles matches. Sampras would play only the doubles with Martin. However, when the chest muscle that Agassi injured during the Davis Cup semi-finals against Sweden in late September failed to heal in time, plans changed. Sampras moved to the singles, and Richey Reneberg was called on to team with Martin in the doubles.

"This is a team event," Sampras said. "The idea is to get three points in the best way possible. I told Tom I would do anything he wanted."

The Russians had decided that clay was their big ally. Last year they had played host to sweden in the finals and lost 4-1 on a hard surface. This year they brought Chesnokov, a clay specialist, into the singles matches with Kafelnikov, who is ranked sixth in the world. They spread the dirt on half the floor of the mammoth stadium, which was built for the 1980 Olympics, and went to work. Slow tennis was good, slower tennis was better. The Russians apparently watered down the court so heavily the night before their semifinal against Germany that the International Tennis Federation fined them $25,000 for making the surface unplayable. The referee ordered the court to be dried out, but the only drying equipment available was six hair dryers borrowed from the Olympic Penta Hotel next door. With no extension cords for the hair dryers and only two electrical outlets, the court remained a lovely, slow mess. Russia won 3-2, Chesnokov taking the final match in a five-set marathon over Michael Stich.

That Sampras was in and Agassi was out -- even though he arrived to sit on the bench and cheer -- was viewed as good news in Russia. Kafelnikov said that the Americans had "given away" the doubles and that the big worry was Courier. Uh-oh. "I don't know why he would say that," said Gullikson, whose twin brother, Tim, stricken with brain cancer, has been Sampras's longtime coach. "I guess they don't know Pete. I would take him on my side for one-on-one tennis, two-on-two, three-on-three, any surface. I would take him for golf."

Sampras's grand run began and almost ended with the bring-a-lunch defeat of Chesnokov. When he collapsed after the final point of a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 victory, sampras looked as if he might not play again for a long while. He was dragged off the court, arms strung over two U.S. trainers, his feet leaving tracks in the clay as if he were a four-wheel drive vehicle heading to a Vermont cabin on a snowy day. Gullikson said he never had seen anything like this. His eyes misted at the very thought of the scene. What if Chesnokov's final shot had not crashed into the net? Could Sampras have played another point?

"Everybody underrates him because he doesn't show his emotions," Gullikson said. "But after a match like this, how can you question his desire or guts?" Amazingly, Sampras walked into the press conference a half hour later and said he felt fine. His body simply had cramped. His left groin and right hamstring went at the same time. A massage and some muscle relaxers brought him back. How far back? Less than 24 hours later, with the U.S. in trouble because Courier had lost the second singles to Kafelnikov by a score of 7-6, 7-5, 6-3, Sampras stood beside Martin and they put together a 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 doubles win over Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy. That victory put the U.S. within one match of the championship.

"We didn't know he was going to play the doubles until about an hour before the match," Gullikson said. "He showed up stiff but said he could go, so we made the change. If you have the best player in the world and he can play, you're probably going to use him. I had to give him two of my white shirts, and we had to send back to the hotel for a pair of white shorts, because it all was decided so late."

When Sampras appeared Sunday and said he felt stiff again, Gullikson said, "Great." Sampras proceeded to play what he called "the best match on clay I've ever played in my life." Usually hurt by a big hitter's characteristic impatience on clay, he picked his spots against Kafelnikov. His shots even sounded different from those hit by Kafelnikov, a louder whack to the Russian's softer thunks. Even Kafelnikov recognized the difference.

"You saw when Pete was fresh and not tired in the first two sets, his serve was flawless," he said. "In the third set, his serve shattered a little bit, but I still could not manage to keep him on the court. That was the plan--keep him on the court."

"The first two sets were as good as I've ever seen him play," Gullikson said. "He barely made an error."

The Russian crowd--a standard, standing-room-only 13,000 every day--did not seem bothered much by the results. This was not an old Russia, workers for the Motherland crowd. This was a society gathering, closer to a Lass Vegas fight crowd than any old-line Party rally. Gone were the henna rinses and pink lipstick on the women and the ill-fitting suits on the men. This was an Armani crowd, Mercedes-Benzes with drivers waiting outside, politicians and fast-buck entrepleneurs and gangsters and bodyguards walking the same ground inside.

The reach of capitalism was on display everywhere, from the special "VIP Village" in the stadium to the rock music played between sets to the sponsor signs for the Our Home Is Russia political party that hopes to retain control of the parliament in the upcoming elections. This was a big-event crowd, no different from the crowd that saw Diana Ross perform in the Kremlin and will see Claudia Schiffer sell perfume at a Moscow fashion show this week.

"If you had told me six years ago it would be like this, I would have said, 'Unbelievable," Yuri Zakharyou, a columnist for the Russian magazine Tennis Plus said. "But now? I say this is expected. This is life."

It is for Sampras as well. "What happened this weekend could have happened just about anyplace," he said. "Outside of one trip to Red Square and a look at Lenin's tomb, my whole time here has been either in the hotel with room service or at the court."

Sampras, who reportedly made $25,000 for his three days of work, was scheduled to play in this week's Grand Slam Cup in Munich, where he is guaranteed $100,000 for playing at least one match and could take home more than a million dollars if he wins the tournament. Kafelnikov was also set to go to Munich to make a lot of money. No hammers. No sickles. No difference.

At the end of the final press conference a Russian teIevision journalist presented Gullikson with a goldfish in a bowl "to go along with your silver trophy." The journalist said that the fish was good luck and that Gullikson and everyone else on the team should make a wish. Sampras said he wished for good health and "maybe winning the million bucks." Other players made other wishes. Gullikson looked at the fish and the journalist and smiled.
"Maybe a little tartar sauce?" he said.