March 19, 2005
I'm done. I've nothing left to give, nothing to prove
By Neil Harman
Nearly two years on, Pete Sampras breaks his silence to talk about
the moment he knew he had to retire
He skips from his golf buggy in jeans and trainers -- country club dress codes are not nearly so strict as they are in England, it seems -- and what strikes you first is that Pete Sampras is the personification of contentment. Second is the apparent pleasure he takes from the idea of spending an hour with someone whose job is to pry. Heavens, how he has changed. Retirement suits a 33-year-old, with a second child on the way, who does not have to wrestle with the concept of a mortgage.
It is 19 months since tennis waved off arguably its greatest champion and he has barely said a word to anyone in the sport since. He had never given more of himself than was absolutely necessary when he played with such majesty and that he disappeared from view after a raw night in New York -- the image of Sampras, shoulders hunched and eyes watery, as he realised it was all over is still vivid -- was not a grand surprise. The Howard Hughes persona sits well with him.
That we are in the Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, California, the town that rubs shoulders with Indian Wells, and that Sampras has no intention of poking his head around the door to see what is going on at the Pacific Life Open, one of the leading events on the tennis calendar, bears this out. Is he not just a bit intrigued?
"No, not really," he said. "The first time you will see me will be Wimbledon, because that's the way I want it. That's the way it should be. Tim Phillips (the All England Club chairman) asked me to come the year after I'd stopped playing, but that was too soon. I would like to go when my son -- maybe sons -- are older. I'd love to sit with them in the royal box and just watch.
"Remember, tennis had been my whole life, it took me over completely. It was a tough sport, one that showed your true character out there, which I loved. But by the end I was holding on so tight to win that record fourteenth grand-slam (title) and only when I did it, I could breathe again. I was on my last fume against Andre (Agassi) in that fourth set in the (2002 US) Open final. If I hadn't have served it out when I did, I don't know what I would have done."
Sampras did not call it quits on that spectacular night but something inside him said enough was enough. He began withdrawing from tournaments and when he called Paul Annacone, his coach, to his home in Beverly Hills on the proviso of knuckling down to practise for Wimbledon 2003, he knew deep down that he would not be making the journey.
"I thought, OK, this is Wimbledon I'm getting ready for, but on the third day I said: 'Paul, let's not kid ourselves, I don't want to practise. I'm done, I've nothing left to give and nothing left to prove to myself.' That was when I knew I was going to retire, but how would I do it?
"Friends said I should go to New York, to the Open, but I worried about exposing myself emotionally. The USTA said they'd love to honour me there and I thought, umm, OK, I'll go. I didn't spend any time before it reflecting on my career, I didn't know what I'd feel, but on the way to the site, a trip I'd made hundreds of times, it suddenly hit me in the face and in the gut. My career was over."
What a career: 14 grand-slam triumphs stretching from 1990 to 2002, including seven Wimbledons, and 64 titles in all, winning £25 million in prize-money. Six times in a row he ended the year as the world No 1 and it was all done with a style and self-effacement that made one want to know more.
For this was the inscrutability of Sampras, who found press conferences a chilling experience, who craved universal acknowledgement but preferred no fuss, who would have chosen to lead an anonymous life but who had it in him to be the best in the world at his chosen sport. And who, finally, married an actress and went to live in Los Angeles, one of the few who did both to escape the world rather than show off to it. He lives in a Tudor house on a hill, "tucked away", he said. Just as he likes it.
He was there after "the surrealism" of Flushing Meadows and his farewell, thrashing around with his feelings. "I had began to resent the sport, I had let it affect me so much," he said. "I remember playing golf with (Jimmy) Connors and he said that when you stop you don't want anything to do with tennis. You don't want to read about it, watch it, talk about it, you want to get as far away from it as possible. That happened to me."
He gave a long sigh before adding: "There was no more pressure, no more stress." But something had to fill the void. "I've been playing a ton of golf and my wife is pregnant, so I've done a little bit of that . . ." His laughter, something we had longed to hear when he played, filled the air of the Bighorn clubhouse.
"Bridgette and I are remodelling our house," he said. "It's taken a lot of time and money. I've been asked to play some (tennis) but I'm not interested. Nothing prepares you for stopping, there is no book on how to retire. Has it really been nearly three years?
"I've had my camp-feverish moments -- what am I going to do today? I've started working out, spending a lot of time with my wife and kid and that's fine, but I've always been a focused, competitive athlete. There will be nothing ever to replace what I had in tennis. I'm still going through the transition.
"The ironic thing is that sport exposed me more than anything else in life. I had only known one thing since I was 8 years old and once I got serious there was no hiding place, which is why I love the home I have now.
"In tennis, no one takes your shots. As defensively reserved as I am, I had to cope with layers being peeled away from me, with what happened in Moscow (when he overcame terrible cramps to lead the United States to victory in the Davis Cup final in 1995), Australia (when he cried his eyes out on the realisation that Tim Gullikson, his coach, was dying in 1995) and the US Open (when he vomited on court playing Alex Corretja in 1996 and was accused of faking).
"I had no control over these things and that is what sport did to me. But I had a desire to be the best and I was willing to sacrifice everything to make it.
"There were great high points -- winning Wimbledon (in 2000) when my parents were there for the first time and sharing that with them. The 2002 US Open was for my wife, who was pregnant with Christian and yet was being blamed for what had gone wrong with my tennis over the two previous years.
"They (the press) said I got married and I was lazy, but I was just tired. The low point in life was dealing with Tim's death, because death is something I'd never confronted before. It has been nine years and I still think of him constantly. In tennis, it was losing to (George) Bastl at Wimbledon in 2002. Do you know what was weird? I got to the press conference and I could feel I was going to cry. I got home and I did cry. I was so hurt, so sad, so very sad. It was the lowest I'd been as a tennis player."
During that match, Sampras prised a letter from his racket bag and read it over and over. In it, Bridgette professed her love for him, whatever the result. It did not matter to her. He welled up.
That Sampras married an actress is hard to reconcile. "You have to find the right actress," he said. "If Bridgette had been a glitzy glamour girl, I wouldn't have gone out with her and certainly not married her. Once I got to know her family, where she came from, what she was like, I was totally comfortable. I couldn't have lasted two dates if it involved being dragged from premiere to premiere."
Sampras yearned acceptance, but his introvert nature had little appeal to the outside world. "I always wondered why, instead of taking me for what I am, it was always about what I'm not," he said. "They didn't want the reserved, quiet guy, they wanted me to do or say something to make their jobs easier. Do I feel the mainstream media didn't appreciate me? Absolutely.
"From grand slams two 'til nine I got a reasonable response, nothing great; then from nine and ten onwards, as the record got closer, I found more people willing to appreciate. I was one of those who was happy to let my racket do the talking in a society that wanted more than just a great tennis player. I became very sensitive early on but it got to the point where, sure, I cared, but I just cared less."
Today he will play a round of golf -- he has a handicap of six --- take Christian, his "extremely energetic" 2-year-old, to the range, work out for a couple of hours, then have a quiet dinner with Bridgette. No rush. No bother.
He has financial interests in Tennis magazine and the embryonic Tennis Channel, he may put some cash into NetJet, a company involved in private jets (not bad for someone who, when he won his first tournament in Philadelphia in 1990, feared the plane might crash and he would not be able to spend his $130,000 winner's cheque).
He plays Texas Hold 'Em, the popular poker variety, a couple of times a week with his country club set. Pistol Pete to Poker Pete. Quite some transformation. Quite some man.
The legend
* Sampras became the youngest person, at 19, to win the US Open, in 1990
* He won seven Wimbledon titles (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000), five US Opens (1990, 1993, 1995, 1996 and 2002) and two Australian Opens (1994 and 1997)
* He holds the greatest number of Wimbledon men's singles titles (7)
* With 14 grand-slam titles to his name, he holds the record for the greatest number achieved in a lifetime
* He had 64 singles titles and 762 career victories, winning $43,280,489 overall
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