28 November 2007
A nostalgic walk with an old champion
By Rohit Brijnath
It's gratifying for people to see Sampras emerging from the champion's cocoon
This fellow in front of me in Kuala Lumpur last week, who needs to borrow a Gillette from Roger and some hair implant advice from Warney, he looks a lot like Pete. Same hunched shoulders. Same silent step to the net. Same unmusical backhand. But no, it's a fine impersonation but it couldn't be Pete.
This guy is smiling! You ever saw Pete smile, even once, till the last point was done? Wait, he's engaging the umpire. He does a jig after a lucky volley.
Pete, dance? This would be like McEnroe singing in the Wimbledon Tea Ladies choir. He mimics Roddick, and the crowd grins, and undoubtedly this fellow is a double, a duplicate, for Pete was never a huckster trying to please the audience.
But it is Pete, and you know it the instant he tosses up the ball, for no duplicate could imitiate that serve. He uncoils lazily, all oiled, muscular havoc, and the wrist snaps and the ball bruises the backdrop and Federer's disbelieving face tells a better story than the speed gun that dryly notes 217 kmph.
It's five years since Pete left tennis after the 2002 US Open but that particular action is tattooed into his muscle memory. How, someone asks, do you still do that, and he drawls: "I don't know. I think some guys are just naturally gifted with a strong arm and serving is something that is not a shot that I think about. I just serve natural, I toss it up and I hit it into the line."
I kind of like this new, loose, unmade, mellow Pete as much as I did the old, ordered, impeturbable, buttoned-up Pete. It's nice that when he played he bound himself in discipline, an athlete who understood history could be made but only if he dedicated every fibre to his mission. Now it's different, he's unbound, his duty done, and it's gratifying for people to see him like this, a human being emerging from the champion's cocoon. At his hall of fame induction some months ago, his speech took forever for he, having unwrapped the armour of his playing days, could not stop weeping. Being World No.1 is a position that demands circumspection, and Pete never gave too much of himself. Now, he offers more, and his words on Federer were valuable, for this was greatness evaluating genius. He confirmed Federer, like him, has that "extra gear", and added "he has this backhand flick that, honestly, I have never seen that before. It's a brilliant shot, something I never had." He admires Federer's lissome game but used one word to describe him that stood out in its unusualness: integrity. The American had it, so does the Swiss. So much of modern sport does not.
He broke down Federer for us, saying: "First of all, he has a big first serve and a good second serve. What Roger does is that he moves so well from the back court and hits the ball so clean, basically he just kind of waits for his opportunity to hit his forehand and he's got probably the biggest forehand in this game. His movement is the best in the world. What he can do on the run, he can come in if he wants to, but there's nothing he can't do."
His tone turned mournful when asked about serve and volley. "(Today's players) serve harder and they don't develop the right technique to volley, you know it takes time to serve and volley, it's sort of a long process, and guys today are picking up these big rackets, and they just hit the crap out of the ball from the baseline."
Federer said Sampras is still top-five quality on fast courts, and some tiny, inquisitive part of Pete must yearn to return, just for a few days, say at Queens, to remind players too young to remember who he was.
He'd beat some of them, too, but mostly his feet are too slow and the game too fast and his lungs too tired.
He said no to a comeback. And he should keep saying no.
He played only to win and now he'd be second best.