June 28, 2008
Pete Sampras and his love affair with Wimbledon
By Peter Bodo
It was, in retrospect, a marriage made in purgatory. Pete Sampras won seven singles titles at Wimbledon en route to securing the all-time grand-slam singles record of 14. He was nurtured to be a Wimbledon champion by Dr Pete Fischer (among other things, this endrocrinologist turned amateur coach convinced Sampras's father, Sam, that his son needed to change to a one-handed backhand because it was a more useful stroke on grass).
Sampras spent hours of his youth watching flickering images of Wimbledon icons such as Rod Laver and Lew Hoad, thrown by a crude 16mm home movie projector on to a blank wall in his family's dining-room in Palos Verdes, California. This pleasant indoctrination left Sampras impressed, but as he matured into his late teens and finally had the chance to play at Wimbledon, he was baffled and put off.
He was awed by Centre Court (on his first visit in 1989 he stole into the venue with his chaperone and brother, Gus, and for some minutes they sat there, jaws agape). But Sampras did not have the tools to win on grass and, true to his Southern California roots, preferred hard courts.
"I loved everything about Wimbledon's lawns," he told me while we collaborated on his recently published autobiography, A Champion's Mind. "But there was this little problem of having to actually play on the grass."
Sampras solved the turf puzzle in July 1993 (he had held the world No.1 ranking by the time he won his first title in SW19). Once he worked that bit out and began to establish himself as a Wimbledon champion for the ages, he no longer felt obliged to withhold his full affection.
One of the more satisfying elements in A Champion's Mind is the story of how and why Sampras came to love Wimbledon above all other tournaments. It was for all the right reasons (and yes, that he dominated there is one of them; we are talking about a warrior-athlete here, not some brooding romantic poet). This chronically reticent and guarded champion even came to enjoy giving the requisite victory speech at the post-tournament ball, which proved a bridge too far for many other worthy winners.
Writing this book with Sampras was a great pleasure. He had spent his career playing his cards close to his chest, intent on keeping the world at arm's length while he pursued his grand ambition. But with that mission accomplished, he came to see the value of telling his story, his way.
This process of opening up sometimes put him on unfamiliar ground. Numerous times during our taping sessions (most of which took place at his home in Beverly Hills) he would laugh nervously and say, "God, I don't believe I remember all this." Or, mentally drained by a few hours of discussion: "I feel like I'm on a therapist's couch or something."
Working with him was easy, though, because he has always been a realist with little use for drama, introspection or emotional adventurism. It was not a bad way to be for a man who saw Fischer sent to jail for molesting a young male patient, for someone who watched Tim Gullikson, the coach who led him through the portal of greatness, die of brain cancer before their work together was complete.
Sampras also suffered from ulcers as well as thalassemia, a form of anaemia affecting people of Mediterranean stock. He took great pains to keep those "weaknesses" secret.
In writing his book, Sampras showed a remarkable facility for cutting to the chase --- for "keeping it real". He wanted A Champion's Mind to be a tennis memoir --- the book his grandchildren would read if they were curious about him. He had no interest in settling scores or satisfying voyeuristic urges regarding those aspects of his personal life that had no real bearing on his career. He wanted to be honest and revealing, but only about things that really mattered.
These aspirations may seem humble and perhaps even quaint in today's supercharged market for tell-all, confessional, revisionist autobiographies. But Sampras is Sampras, ever true to himself. It helps to explain why you will not see him on stage in torn Levis, mangling an electric guitar. Sampras was able to tell me how he felt about almost anything in the proverbial 500 words or fewer. We had no lengthy candlelit dinners after which, loaded on red wine, he broke down and talked for four hours about how he really feels about his father.
Underestimate those virtues at your peril. They were critical to Sampras getting everything he wanted out of his early life and career, and if you think that was easy --- even for someone made of this kind of stuff --- the book may surprise you.
That is especially true if your own marriage with, arguably, the greatest player of all time was made in the purgatory of all those gruesome rock fights with Goran Ivanisevic at Wimbledon. A marriage that starts there can end up consummated in heaven, as Sampras's history at Wimbledon amply demonstrated.