October 20, 2009
In The Zone With Pete Sampras, Part One
By antiMatter
There is no easy way for me to do this. This is the one man in tennis that I feel truly emotional about.
And as much as I would truly like to do something "special" for him, I am paranoid about trying something and not doing it to my satisfaction, or blowing it up for my idol.
So I will hasten here for fear of boring and irritating my long-suffering readers and doing an injustice to him, and plunge into a bit of my memoirs about this truly remarkable legend of tennis, not committing myself to the misplaced metaphors that the other part of my consciousness is pushing in front of me, and just stick to a first person monologue.
I grew up watching Pete, and as happens in the case of most blokes, my Dad laid the seeds for the prejudices that were soon to bloom in my mind regarding the game (which I have since, tried hard to shed). He was a true blue fan of Andre and Pete, and normally took the side of either of them, when they played each other, depending on who played better. He would always want the match to get tighter.
He used to tell me when Pete would start bouncing the ball at the baseline to serve at 0-40 down at 4-5 (down) against Agassi, seeing the tension in me, "Why are you worried? I will tell you what you are going to see --- a couple of aces, one of them on a second serve, a serve and volley, and an un-returnable serve."
Well, though that was not the exact order in which things used to work out, the crux of the story was still the same. And then he would add, "See? I told you. Against most players, the fact that he has won so many Slams would be enough to win him the match. But this is Agassi. Anyway, I told you."
This and many other instances firmly cemented Pete as a hero in me. He never played to the crowd; well almost never. But I have always felt that Pete's game was the most expressive thing on a tennis court.
The clinical precision and cruelty of a second service ace, the sheer drama of a Slam Dunk, the adrenaline of a running forehand, the elegance and authority of a back-hand cross court pass, the air of finality of the laser-guided volley.
But what accentuated this experience was his demeanour, especially the slow and assured walk around the base-line between points, where it seemed that he let his body take charge of itself as if the muscles remembered how they could walk, while his brain had better things to delve upon.
The delicate equilibrium of the balancing act between the left and right halves of the body gave the impression that he was about to fall off in fatigue. This is body language that you would call negative in most players, but on Pete it meant nothing and on most occasions, seemed intimidating.
He never seemed to panic, or encourage a brouhaha over his exploits. A shake of the head in an approving nod, or a clenching of the fist was all that would be visible.
All this gave me the image of a man who not only was in control of himself, but also in control of his fate. And he was never weak, or never wore away during a match. Tennis was the only focus when he played, not what came after that or before.
(I can not afford to go into the stories of this man that have legendary status in my mind, nor is that the point of this article.)
And when the man who had the perfect attitude of a tennis player together with an almost perfect game (we know who has "the perfect game") Zoned in, he became executioner and undertaker, rolled into one, the silent assassin.
The match under consideration is a Davis Cup tie between United States and Australia where Pete squared off against Pat Rafter.
Rafter was better than Pete at the net, had a better single-fisted backhand and had a kick-serve that played to Pete's weaker wing.
In the first set, Rafter used his angled and kicker deliveries to great effect, extracting easy balls at the net and putting them off for volley winners. And Pete himself was brilliant holding his own service games; after all he had arguably the best service in the business.
The game in those days were faster and more reflexive. The courts played very fast and the volleys were pin-point accurate not giving an inch to give hopes of retrieval. And outright return winners were not very rare either, since it was enough to get the ball past a charging opponent.
So it was vintage serve-and volley tennis for a set, Pete holding his own comfortably, and Rafter having a good time because Pete could not really do much on the returns, which mostly sealed the deal for him.
The tie-breaker had some vintage shots. Pete got his nose ahead with a backhand cross-court flick pass off a very very low ball with a lot of vicious slice on it. After many exchanges, Rafter paid back on the same coin but with a little assistance from the net.
Rafter then went up a set-point with a stunning forehand pass down the line from a pacy stroke off Pete's forehand and sealed the first set with an unreturnable serve.
The second set was where Pete's base-line game started to come into full force. The first of Rafter's service games in this set gave glimpses of it, when Pete ran down a laser-guided volley on his forehand side and on the dead run sent it for a cross court running forehand pass. When Pete is on the run, you know what is going to happen, but there is most of the time, nothing you can do about it.
Pete kept serving strong as usual, but he started reading the Rafter serve better. Return winners started pouring in from both the forehand and backhand sides, many of them passing shots.
Where he couldn't hit a return for a winner, Pete directed the ball at Rafter's feet at the net, and then taking position to hit an exquisite pass off the volley that would not have as much venom now due to the quality of the return.
A bit more of angle was added (or removed) and a bit of height taken off the passes which he had tried in the first set but which Rafter had gotten to.
Many volleys became smashes, and the Slam Dunks started burning the court as Pete made his intentions clear.
Pete's base-line game is what is most under-rated by tennis dummies, and that is exactly what started setting him apart from Rafter at that point.
The match presented a lot of moments for the connoisseur.
Forehand cross-court passes on service returns, what I would call inside in back-hand return winners, inside out backhand return winners, exquisite lobs which were beautiful on account of the "hand-work" on the ball with the wrist doing the work just like in a volley, and forehands of pure power.
I will indulge myself a bit here and point out a couple of these.
In the second set, on Pete's serve, Pete decides to stay back and Rafter directs a deep return to Pete's back-hand. Confident of his approach shot Rafter moves towards the net, Pete bends low, and flicks his wrist for a lob over Rafter's head that lands at the backhand corner of the court --- just perfect. Though Rafter runs back and retrieves, Pete finishes off the point at the net with a deft drop volley.
Now just one more. This happened in third set on the Rafter serve. Pete mishits a backhand return. Rafter has all the time in the world and the ball bounces high over the net. He drives a full blooded forehand cross court. But Pete who is on the other side of the court, not only leans forward and reaches it, but also sends it back cross-court for a running forehand pass. Looking at where Pete hits the ball from, the commentator exclaims, "I don't believe it! I don't think he can believe it!"
With his artillery getting into it's full variety, the next two sets were bread-sticks.
After the sound drubbing in the second and third sets, though Rafter got his game up a notch in the fourth, and perhaps Pete relaxed a bit, the momentum was enough for Pete to break Rafter and seal the deal.
I will put an end to this rambling here in hopes that I did not spoil the read.
I had mentioned to Rob that I wanted to do "some match between Pete and Rafter in 1997, though I cannot recollect which one." It was Rob who directed me to this one.
As I review some videos, I now remember that it was the Grand Slam Cup that I was originally referring to. Maybe I would get to write on that some day.
The King of Swing will forever be my favorite.
In The Zone With Pete Sampras, Part 2
By Rob York
After Pete Sampras spent most of 1995 chasing Andre Agassi in the rankings, then defeated him in the final of the US Open, Tennis magazine wrote that Sampras "never again needs to prove how good he is."
If only that were true. Up to his retirement, Sampras never had to stop proving himself: He fell short in the first three slams of 1996 and had to win the last to maintain his No. 1 ranking.
He struggled in first half of 1998, and went into Wimbledon playing like the world's "10th-best" player, according to nemesis Richard Krajicek.
And going in to the 1999 Wimbledon, he was once again at risk of being overshadowed by Agassi, who'd just capped a career Grand Slam by winning Roland Garros.
Sampras had won only one title for the year, and it had come just two weeks prior at Queen's Club.
Not that it mattered: Pete Sampras believed in Pete Sampras in each of the previous occasions and was vindicated. Going into Wimbledon 1999, it was only matter of time before he brought everyone else around.
His first convert would be Agassi: Following his recovery from the career low of 1997 (which, we recently learned, was a lot lower than we'd suspected), Double-A was not only in the shape of his life but was now more confident than ever.
The serve was never his go-to shot, but he had long used it to set up his peerless ballstriking and allow him to work his opponents' legs over.
Following his Paris triumph, Agassi was so confident in his fitness and movement that he began using his first serve as a weapon, assured that he could win plenty of second serves with his quick feet and hands.
As the game's best pure hitter and returner began serving with authority, he plowed through the Wimbledon draw, losing only one set along the way, and crushing No. 2 seed Patrick Rafter in the semis.
His game was good enough to stay with anyone, including the best grass court player of his generation on the Centre Court lawns.
For about seven games, anyway. Serving at 3-3, Sampras found himself down 0-40 against his greatest rival, with one more lost point putting him down a break on the surface least forgiving of service games that slip away.
Still, Pete Sampras believed in Pete Sampras: Agassi may have been the best returner in the game, but Sampras had the best serve, and the server controls where the point's first shot is going.
He didn't have to hit aces: First serves that land on lines or in corners while traveling in the neighborhood of 120 mph are usually enough to ensure that the ball won't be coming back.
With four overhead swings of his Wilson, The Pistol erased Agassi's break point chances and gave himself a game point. In takes no stretch of the imagination that those serves caused Double-A's missed return on the game's last point.
From then on, Sampras not only believed, but knew. What his serve started, his running forehand (particularly against Agassi's wide serve in the deuce court) carried the rest of the way.
The sudden uptake in pace deprived Double-A of adequate time to set up, and soon Sampras was up a break and every shot in his considerable repertoire was on target.
Agassi had seen Sampras in The Zone before: In the 1990 US Open final Agassi was encumbered by expectations for his first major, while Sampras was a bony kid with an explosive serve, too inexperienced to know that he was supposed to lose.
In 1995, they met at the same venue as the world's No. 1 and 2 players, with Agassi bringing his A-game and Sampras his A-plus.
Impressive as those displays were, Sampras had taken his smothering net game to another level by 1999, and the slick sheen of grass clearly favored him.
When he broke Agassi to start set two, viewers went from wondering who would win to wondering if Agassi'd survive the day with his ego intact.
But Double-A responded to the barrage by amping up his second serves from the high-80s to low-90s, then punctuating each groundstroke with a grunt to add a touch more velocity.
His first serve percentage dipped into the 40s and his double fault count increased to six, but for a time it worked: He held his serve throughout the rest of the second set and well into the third.
He just couldn't break The Pistol. Sampras faced only one more break point that afternoon, which he promptly denied.
He put exactly two-thirds of his first serves into play, winning 89 percent of them. He hit 16 aces, and didn't once have to pull out the patented slam-dunk overhead.
Striking out against the Sampras serve and under pressure from his deep returns, Agassi held it together until the 11th game of the third set. Down 15-40, he saved one break point with a first serve, deep approach shot to the backhand and a put-away volley.
On the next point, as The Pistol repeatedly floated back a series of deep slice backhands, Agassi tried for a winner too low over the net and found the tape.
All that remained for Sampras now was to serve out the match, which he did, culminating with a second-serve ace down the T. He had never stopped believing in Pete Sampras; still, the roar he released after match point indicated that making everyone else believe is a feeling that only grows more satisfying as the years pass.
"Andre brings out the best in me," Sampras said later. "He elevates my game to a level that is phenomenal."
Asked how many times Sampras could win the Wimbledon championships, Agassi said: "As many times as he wants."
That win gave him his 12th major title, tying Roy Emerson's record. He wanted one more to break it, and got it the following year despite an injured shin. After that came marriage and family, along with the accumulated injuries of age that make victory less consistent.
But when everyone else had stopped expecting much of him, his own expectations carried him to one last major at the 2002 US Open. Having justified his self-belief he left the game, never again needing to prove how good he was.