April 5, 2006
Retiring wasn't easy for Sampras
By Dale Robertson
So there were regrets after all, it appears. Although Pete Sampras did what few great athletes do -- he said goodbye from the rarefied air of the mountaintop -- the script was never as neat and tidy as we assumed.
Because Sampras put down his racket after winning on the biggest tennis stage his country has to offer, he was roundly cheered for knowing when to say when. The only thing he could have done better, it was suggested, would have been to tell the world he was retired as soon as he had beaten his rival, Andre Agassi, to win the 2002 U.S. Open.
After all, Sampras surely couldn't have fathomed playing on after such an impossibly perfect, career-capping moment? Surely, given the repeated indignities he suffered for two seasons leading into that Open, he must have understood he was obliged to walk off among the clouds after reviving his reputation so spectacularly.
Actually, he didn't understand that at all. Quite the opposite. Sampras admits today, as he prepares for a match against a fellow pro in front of paying customers for the first time since that magical moment when Agassi went down in the gloaming of Arthur Ashe Stadium, he wishes he had gone ahead and taken a long, smug, celebratory victory lap.
"Remember, I didn't predict I'd win the Open, then ride off into the sunset," says Sampras, who faces Robby Ginepri in a best-of-three-sets exhibition at River Oaks Country Club tonight. "It just happened. I'd been struggling for two years; then I came through for those two weeks. It had been so tough, those two years -- a burden on me personally and a burden on my marriage."
"So I wish I'd won that event, then had the heart to keep going because the pressure would have been off and the tennis would have been fun again. I'm not one to walk into a press conference and say, 'I told you so,' but a big part of me wanted to do that."
In other words, it never crossed Sampras' mind that he was finished after Agassi had been swept aside. Sampras debated the matter internally for months, never entering a tournament but not officially conceding he wouldn't play again. His uncertainty lingered until it came time to start preparing for Wimbledon the next summer.
Heart tells him no
"People say I should have retired right there, on the court (at the Open)," he said. "It's not that easy. I had to go through all the emotions that go with leaving a game that I'd dedicated my life to, that I'd been playing since I was 7. You don't set a timetable. You just leave. Once I won the Open, I really wanted to continue. But my heart wasn't in it."
"Going out and playing at 2 on Sunday at Wimbledon ? that's the easy part. It's the preparation, the running, the working out, the travel, being away from your family that's the hard part. A lot more happens than just picking up a racket and playing a match."
"But it still took me until Wimbledon the next year, when I couldn't make myself get ready to go again, that I knew I was done. That was when I realized I had nothing left in the tank."
Sampras officially retired in August 2003, and once he decided to stick his rackets in the closet, they stayed there. Other than to play occasionally with his son, Christian, a toddler who wasn't much of threat to the old man, he never ventured near a court. If he felt like playing something, he headed to the golf course. He admits he has played "a lot" of golf, enough to have acquired a 5-handicap.
But around last Christmas, Sampras looked in the mirror and saw a man who, at 34, was becoming bored, who needed some structure and focus. Truth to tell, he needed tennis again. With wife Bridgette's blessing, he began to explore ways to scratch the itch without becoming consumed by it.
"I opened myself up to playing a little," Sampras said. "Whatever made sense for my family and my schedule I'd look at. I just wanted to get back in shape and get the competitive juices flowing again."
River Oaks' proposal was the best one to come across his desk: a single match in a lovely setting, with a magnificent golf course right next door. OK, the tennis surface would be clay -- "a little ironic, given my history on the stuff," he mused -- but it gave him a chance to return to a place he remembered fondly, if only vaguely, from his adolescence. Although he'd lost to Richey Reneberg at River Oaks in 1988, when Sampras was an ashy, gangly 17-year-old, he received a warm welcome from the club members. Such things tend to make an impression.
Keeping it fun
And beginning this evening against Ginepri, a formidable opponent for anyone coming off a 3 1/2 -year hiatus -- even Sampras -- the sport will never not be fun for him again.
"I want to entertain the people and not get hurt," Sampras said. "It's not a comeback. It's more about being competitive and getting to do something again that I used to be really good at. In tennis, at least I know where the ball is going when I hit it. Not like golf."
Just the same, the man who won seven Wimbledons in eight summers and deserves serious consideration as the game's greatest player ever expects to be nervous, at least initially, in front of the crowd.
"I think there will be (butterflies)," he said. "I don't know what to expect. I told everyone it's like riding a bike, but ..."
"Robby's a tough draw, a real grinder on clay. Still, I'm excited to get out there and hit a few balls for the people."
Practicing with purpose
After he signed his contract, Sampras began training in earnest, practicing with Justin Gimelstob and the UCLA varsity. He says he has been spending two hours on the court four to five days a week. He is Pete Sampras after all. There are high standards, unique expectations.
"There's always a swagger when I step on the tennis court," he admits. "Even when I'm practicing, I still want to wow myself."
Sampras remembers only too well what it felt like to have people look at him in 2001-02 and shake their heads, questioning why he was trying to hang on in such a reduced state. Then came the U.S. Open and, with it, redemption, vindication and storybook closure.
"I don't miss the pressure, the stress of staying on top," Sampras said. "I feel like I had a bull's-eye on my chest for most of my career."
Of course he did. Winning 14 Grand Slams doesn't come without a price.