March 19, 2005
Peter the Silent
Speak seldom and carry a big racket: you will go far
Shooting from the lip does not always serve an ace. Today our tennis correspondent publishes the first major interview with Pete Sampras since he retired nearly two years ago. The greatest tennis champion that the world has seen is a paragon of reticence.
He is counterintuitive in our world of mass celebrity, soundbites and public gossip. Silence is no longer golden. It is counted as the modern sin.
But it has had champions before Sampras. Clement Atlee and Harry Truman were taciturn compared with modern statesmen, who spout hot air as constantly as kettles. But they rate highly in the league tables.
Greta Garbo became a legendary film star by refusing to give interviews. Clint Eastwood shines more brightly than his younger successors by keeping his mouth buttoned. He snarled: "Go ahead, make my day," through pursed lips, and only because it was in the script: never to piranha interviewers.
Tiger Woods and David Beckham address the press only rarely, but never say anything. Martin Johnson and our own Jonny Wilkinson focus on the next game rather than the publicity apparatus.
"Laconic" is the eponym of the Lacedaemonians. Philip of Macedon wrote to them: "If I enter Sparta, I will level Sparta to the ground." The ephors replied with a monosyllable: "If." For a century Sparta ruled the world and defeated the chatterbox Athenians.
Einstein was a laconic ace, not just because what he had to say was incomprehensible to most. Sampras is a champion of Einstein's only intelligible quote: "If A is a success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut." Unfashionable, perhaps; but ace advice, Pete.
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