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1998 ARTICLES

Pete Sampras: Mr. 100 Percent   Sampras Competes Against Best -- Ever   Best Ever? That's reason to watch Pete   For the Record...

Defending champion in Paris

There is one name dominating men's tennis over the past years: Pete Sampras. At only 27, the Orlando-resident has reached every
goal a tennis player could have. He has won an amazing 11 Grand Slams, 56 career singles titles and has spend 242 weeks as No. 1 on
the ATP Tour Rankings. Last year, Sampras got voted as the best player of the past 25 years by his fellow pros and media alike. But he
wants more: The goal is to set new records in every aspects of the game.

After Sampras defeated Yevgeny Kafelnikov in last year's edition of the ATP Tour World Championship in Hannover in straight sets it seemed that there was no other player on the Tour who could even get close to him. At some point in 1997, Sampras had so many
ranking points to his name that he could have been ranked twice in the Top 10.

1998, however, proved to be more of a challenge than expected. The likes of Marcelo Rios, Petr Korda and Patrick Rafter continuously
challenged Sampras' top spot and after some less successful tournaments, Rios did manage to overtake the American. But Sampras came back and won Wimbledon, showing the world that what some had called a bad season, was not. "I have not played as consistent as I did last year," said Sampras, "that's all."

Pete Sampras has easily qualified for Hannover once again, but he is still being chased. In Paris, he has to defend last year's title. If he does not manage to do so, a new No. 1 could enter the World Championship, a thought that Sampras must find unacceptable, because his goal for 1998 is bigger: By finishing the year as No. 1 for the 6th consecutive time he would be the first player to ever do so. For
a player like Sampras who always tries to give 100% a chance like that should not be missed.

His opponents aren't Agassi, Rafter and Rios. They are Laver, Rosewall and Emerson.

Pete Sampras isn't playing for today; he's competing for history.

Pete Sampras needs to win on the clay of the French Open to be considered the best ever.

When he gained his fifth Wimbledon championship in 1998, it gave him 11 Grand Slam singles titles, matching the total won by his idol, Rod Laver, and Bjorn Borg, and leaving him one behind the all-time leader, Roy Emerson.

Though he's earned more than $33 million in ATP Tour earnings, it's winning Grand Slams that consumes him. The easy-going, hard-hitting Sampras would trade a dozen of his 55 Tour victories for one French Open or another Australian. Let others play for money; he's playing for majors.

"I measure my year on how I do at the majors and the more that I have won over the years, the more I want to win," Sampras said. "I don't look at myself as a historical icon, but the reality of it is, yeah, I am playing for history now."

Sampras, 27, is not the indifferent jock he pretends to be. While he gives the impression that he doesn't play with a passion, he deeply wants to be remembered as the best ever. "I don't think it's arrogant," Sampras said. "I'm not ashamed that I feel that I can actually do it."

Yet, he is uncomfortable in the spotlight. He is a throwback to the days when gentleman played the sport of tennis. "I could be a jerk and get a lot more publicity, but that's not who I am," said Sampras, who believes in the past, but came of age in the 1990s.

Although Emerson holds the Slams record, the man against whom Sampras ultimately will be measured is that other Aussie that he was taught to emulate, Laver, the winner of two Grand Slams and generally regarded as the game's greatest.

"There wasn't an American that I really idolized," Sampras said. "Sure, I respected (John) McEnroe's talent and (Jimmy) Connors' intensity, but the Aussies, those guys were great guys." And the players he admired most were the gentlemanly Laver and Ken Rosewall.

Since 1993, when he first claimed the No. 1 ranking, the 6-foot-1 Sampras has stood head and shoulders above his playing opponents. While he has a ferocious forehand and sensational serve, his greatest gift may be his will to win. He's not afraid to leave his guts on the courts -- literally.

He was born Aug. 12, 1971 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Palos Verdes, Cal. His father, Soterios, called Sam, was an aerospace engineer for the Department of Defense and his mother, Georgia, was a homemaker.

He began playing tennis at seven and when he was nine, his father asked Pete Fischer, a physician and amateur player, to hit with his son. Fischer was so impressed with the youngster's ability, he became his coach.

When Sampras was 11, he had the opportunity to trade groundstrokes with Laver. "Pete was so nervous he couldn't get the ball over the net," Fischer said.

Sampras rarely won a major junior tournament. Fischer believed his protege needed to play "up" in age groups, against stronger and older players to develop his all-around game. "From the very beginning, the competition was always Laver," Sampras said.

At 14, Fischer changed Sampras' backhand from two-handed to one-handed. He also switched him from a safe defensive baseliner to a classic risky serve-and-volleyer. "I played just like (Michael) Chang, grinding from the baseline," Sampras said. "When I started serving and volleying, I became much more laid back."

Fischer told him that someday these changes would help him win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

Sampras turned pro at 16 following his junior year in high school. By the late 1980s, he split with Fischer because he thought his coach was an overbearing perfectionist, someone who "wanted to put his brain in my body."

In 1990, Sampras, who was ranked No. 81 at the start of the year, stunned the tennis world -- and himself -- by becoming the youngest U.S. Open winner at 19 years, 28 days. The 12th-seeded Sampras defeated Ivan Lendl, McEnroe and Andre Agassi in the last three rounds for just his third tour victory. He served 100 aces in his seven matches and attributed his first Slams title to "a hot two weeks."

When he lost in the 1991 U.S. Open quarterfinals, Sampras said he was more relieved than disappointed and that he felt like "a ton of bricks" was lifted from his shoulders. Connors and Jim Courier, among others, criticized him.

"That quote reflected the truth of how I felt," Sampras said. "I wasn't sure then that I really could win another Grand Slam title."

Sampras rebounded in 1992, going 70-18 and winning five tournaments. He also helped the United States win the Davis Cup, capturing five-set doubles matches with McEnroe in the semifinals and finals.

But it was a defeat that turned around his career. After losing to defending champion Stefan Edberg at the U.S. Open final, Sampras discovered how much he wanted to win.

"I realized that I had given up in the match," he said. "Just a touch, but enough to lose. I came to the realization that getting to finals wouldn't be good enough anymore."

New coach Tim Gullickson showed Sampras the value of playing percentage tennis -- going for smart, conservative shots rather than flashy, difficult ones. On April 12, 1993, Sampras reached the No. 1 ranking for the first time, and only occasionally has he fallen from that perch. He's been there at the end of the past six years, a record in men's tennis.

His record improved to 83-15 with eight tournament victories, including his first Wimbledon and second U.S. Open. When he won the 1994 Australian Open, he became the first player since Laver in 1969 to win three consecutive Grand Slam titles. After losing at the French Open, Sampras won his second Wimbledon.

At the quarterfinals of the 1995 Australian Open, Sampras wept in the fifth set against Courier when a fan shouted for him to win the match for Gullickson, who had left the tournament because of complications from a brain tumor. Sampras regained his composure to defeat Courier. However, he lost the final to Agassi. It would be the second -- and last -- time Sampras would lose in 13 Slam finals.

He became the first American to win three consecutive Wimbledons and he regained his U.S. Open title. He capped 1995 by accounting for all three points as the U.S. defeated Russia in the Davis Cup final.

On May 3, 1996, Gullickson, 44, died of brain cancer. Sampras lost in the first three majors that year, but retained his U.S. Open title, showing his guts against Alex Corretja in a four-hour and nine-minute quarterfinal.

With the score 1-1 in a fifth-set tiebreaker, a dehydrated Sampras vomited twice. Refusing to lose, he saved a match point at 6-7 with a desperate, full-extension forehand volley winner. After a fault on a weak first serve, the exhausted Sampras found the strength to deal a second-serve ace. The match ended when Corretja double faulted on the next point.

"I hate to lose, and I do whatever I can to win, and if it is ugly, it is ugly," said Sampras, who needed a half-gallon of intravenous fluids afterwards.

Sampras won the 1997 Australian Open and took Wimbledon in 1997 and 1998, tying Borg's 20th-century record of five Wimbledons. "There's a certain aura about the place that you don't feel anywhere else," Sampras said. "The echo of the balls hit on Centre Court -- it just feels significant."

The only thing missing in Pete Sampras' resume is a victory on the French Open clay. He realizes that without it, he might not be regarded as No.1 all-time, no matter how many Slams titles he wins.

MASON -- Best Ever. If you didn't like hockey, you might go to a game anyway, just to watch Wayne Gretzky. Baseball might bore you, but Joe DiMaggio wouldn't. Football? Jim Brown or Joe Montana or Lawrence Taylor. Michael Jordan, of course. He could make you watch basketball. These are the people to tell your grandkids about, the athletes that bring memory to their games. The once-in-a-generation team. Pete Sampras?

Best Ever, almost.

Sampras isn't there yet, but he's just 26 years old and in the center of the photo. Rod Laver, Roy Emerson. A lefty forehand to Jimmy Connors, a ponytail to Bjorn Borg. Sampras belongs with them, and even if you think tennis is a waste of shoes, maybe you go watch Pete Sampras.

Here's a bonus with Sampras: He makes you feel good for having seen him play. He has won Wimbledon five times in the last six years. After winning it again in June, he said this:

"I've tried to stay humble in all my accomplishments."

Sampras has 11 career Grand Slam titles, second to Emerson's 12. He has done it without changing the color of his hair or behaving like a third-grader.

Roll the highlights

For a player we've decided is beige, Sampras has produced lots of Technicolor moments:

Playing through sickness and fatigue to beat Alex Corretja in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open;

Beating Jim Courier in the Australian Open quarters in '95, just after he'd learned his coach and friend, Tim Gullikson, had been diagnosed with brain cancer;

Going 3-0 on clay courts in the '95 Davis Cup finals against Russia, defeating Andrei Chesnokov while cramping up one day and winning a doubles match the next.

Naturally, you'll go to the ATP Championship this week, seeking Andre Agassi and the Jensen Brothers. If form holds, you'll leave Sunday having watched Sampras in the finals, edging closer to Best Ever.

Sampras doesn't say much about Sampras, so I asked three senior players for their opinions.

"If you took a video of Pete's game, you could give it to any kid and say, This is how you play," said Tom Gullikson, his coach on the '95 Davis Cup team.

Gullikson sounded like Ken Rosewall and Fred Stolle. Each served platitudes at 100 miles an hour. Sampras is a gentleman, they said. He plays with courage. He wants to be remembered as the best.

He needs to win a French Open.

One hurdle left

"He can't go down as the best ever if he can't win the French championships," Stolle said.

Said Rosewall, "I think that's getting harder and harder for him. He's winning a lot of matches the way he likes to play. In the French, on the clay courts, you have to win matches not enjoying the way you play."

Or as Gullikson put it, "It's a matter of putting in the work. I don't think he's played enough on red clay. I don't think he has the confidence to win on it."

Here's the thing about playing on clay: It's slow. It's like standing on the baseline and playing catch. Sampras doesn't play a slow game. He does not like to hit groundstrokes until he yawns. Winning on clay requires patience. Also, that you play on clay more than a couple times a year. As Gullikson said, "It's a different mindset. Pete might have to play three or four tournaments on clay before the French."

There is no clay in Mason, only a lightning quick surface that will give Sampras' serves the look of Randy Johnson fastballs. Said Gullikson, "He senses he has a high place in tennis history. That's what motivates him."

Go watch some history in process this week. Pete Sampras will be there, edging closer to Best Ever. Quietly.

Is Pete Sampras the best ever or is one more Grand Slam title--particularly the elusive French Open--the deciding factor?

Pete Sampras recently secured in Hannover a sixth consecutive year finish at No. 1 on the ATP Tour ranking, beating Jimmy Connors' record. "This record may never be beaten," Sampras said and repeated as he was fighting through the European indoor season, trying to garner some precious ranking points. A Wimbledon champion for the fifth time, Sampras is now only one Grand Slam title away from Roy Emerson's record of 12. "One day, this boy is going to beat Emerson's record, and become the greatest player ever," Pete Fischer, Sampras' first coach, used to say when he was just 11. Uncannily, this prediction, from a man whose influence on the No. 1 player, is too often underestimated, is coming true. Some already consider the 27-year-old as the greatest ever. To others, he is not there yet. We asked some former champions what they feel:

Charlie Pasarell, former player, director of the Indian Wells tournament and member of the ATP Tour board of directors: "Pete is probably the best player ever. You know, I have played guys such as Pancho Gonzales and Rod Laver, and I've watched closely the careers of Björn Borg or John McEnroe. But if I had to make a choice, I think I would still pick Pete as the greatest ever. His achievements speak for themselves. And he is very close to equaling and probably beating Roy Emerson's record of Grand Slam titles and I'm convinced that he will succeed. I remember having watched Pete play when he was 15, and I thought back then that he had the potential for a great career. He proved it since then."

Vijay Amritraj, former player, former member of the ATP Tour board of directors and TV commentator: "He is certainly among the best ever. On faster surfaces, he has achieved exceptional performances since the beginning of his career. But I would still put him behind Laver and Borg who won on all surfaces. In fact, I think that Laver is still the best player ever. Borg comes just behind. And one can argue about the name of whoever follows. I may pick Connors, who won over 100 tournaments, and who captured three Grand Slam titles the same year (1974). McEnroe on the other hand added several Davis Cup victories to his individual wins. There's no doubt that Sampras belongs to this category of exceptional champions. But as long as he has not won the French, he remains in my opinion behind Laver and Borg."

Manuel Santana, former winner of Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the U.S. championships: "I don't think Sampras is the best ever. I think he's a great player but in order to have a chance to be considered as the greatest, a player must have won Paris (Roland Garros). I think that Rod Laver remains the best ever. He won two Grand Slams, in spite of the fact that he wasn't able to play these events for several years as a professional. Although Sampras won Wimbledon five times, and the U.S. Open, one cannot think of him as the greatest ever until he wins Roland Garros which is a very tough one to win. If he does it, we'll talk about it again."

Cliff Drysdale, former player and TV commentator: "I think that Sampras is probably the greatest player of all time. If you consider the level of competition on the men's tour today, and the number of excellent players around, then you have to consider him as the best. I don't think that it is necessary for him to win Paris (Roland Garros) to earn that consideration. Things are different today from what they were say 20 years ago. Let's not forget that back then, three of the four Grand Slam events were played on grass, and one on clay. Today two take place on hard, one on grass and one on clay, which makes it a lot harder. Winning the French would be an extra achievement for Sampras, but it is not necessary to consider him as what he already is; the greatest."

Tim Mayotte, former player and former member of the ATP Tour board of directors: "I don't think that he has proved it yet. In my opinion, Rod Laver remains the best ever. He won two Grand Slams and was not able to play the majors for five or six years as a professional. On the other hand, I have the impression that Laver played more memorable matches than Pete. This may be one of the reasons for which I have a hard time considering Pete as the greatest. I have the feeling that there haven't been as many great rivalries involving Pete, as there were involving Laver, and this surely has a certain weight when you get to such considerations, in any case, in my mind. So even if Pete's career is extraordinary and makes him one of the greatest, I still put Laver ahead."

Jan Kodes, twice Roland Garros champion and Wimbledon champion: "There's no doubt that Sampras is an extraordinary champion. He has an exceptional game, and basically no weaknesses, but I feel that he has to win Roland Garros in order to deserve being considered as the greatest in history. His great serve and his attacking qualities can enable him to win in Paris. The best proof is that McEnroe went to the final one year. In my opinion it's a question of preparation. If Pete decided to spend the necessary amount of time and energy, while really believing in it, he can win in Paris. And then, he would definitely be the best ever."

Guy Forget, former French No. 1 and twice member of a winning Davis Cup team: "It's hard to say. You cannot compare different eras and the numbers of titles. I think that at the moment he is one of the two or three greatest players in history. But his career is not over yet, and he can still manage to achieve some more great wins. He can indeed beat all the records. But you will still have those who will say 'okay, but he didn't win two Grand Slams like Laver; he has not done it all in the same year: he didn't win the French; or yes, he has a great serve, but when he doesn't serve aces, he remains vulnerable...' But even when I look years back, since I am not a nostalgic of the past, I would say that he is undoubtedly one of the two or three greatest players ever."

Tony Roche, former French Open champion: "Pete already has a record which in my opinion can justify that you think of him as the greatest. But for me to share this opinion, I think that he ought to win the French Open. If he was able to do so, I would then say that, considering all the parameters, he would be the greatest. Today the level of competition is much higher than in the past, and the surfaces are different. Back at the time when I played, three of the four Grand Slams were played on grass and only Roland Garros took place on a different surface. Today there are four different surfaces, and an incredible number of excellent players, which makes the task very difficult for the current champions. Never before was the competition level as tough as it is today. Considering this, if Pete was able to win the French one day, he would be in my view the best ever."

John Newcombe, former world No. 1 and three-time Wimbledon champion: "In my opinion it's simple. Today, Sampras cannot claim to be the best player ever. He should win the French Open first. If he was able to do so, then it would be possible to consider him as the greatest ever."

Yannick Noah, French Open champion and former Davis and Fed Cup captains for France: "The best ever? In any case he is not far from it. You can start talking about it in the same way as for Borg or Laver. And Pete is only 27, and may well still win a few more majors. The main question is whether he will be able to remain motivated for long."

"His main strength is this exceptional mental strength which allows him to bring out from deep inside him, that last drop of energy in the capital moments when he really needs it. And in addition to that, he possesses the grace of a loose game. And yet his shots are very powerful, a little bit like Carl Lewis when he runs. The others try to pass him with strength, and he comes first in agility and grace. It's fabulous."

Mats Wilander, former world No. 1: "Sampras is the best, although it's difficult to be categorical on the subject. He is without doubt the best I ever played. I think that Sampras at his best would beat McEnroe at his best. He has a fantastic game. I have never seen anyone with such a big serve, having the groundstrokes that Pete has, and a great net game. Before, I thought that McEnroe was the most complete player, but since then, I now think it's Pete. I saw Laver on TV, and I think that he was also very complete but he didn't have a serve nearly as big as Pete's. Maybe technology is a factor, but I don't think it's everything. After all, the swimmers and the runners keep improving and beating records, and technology has nothing to do with it. So why not tennis players?"

"This being said, if you only considered records, then Laver would be superior to Pete with his two Grand Slams. And he would have probably won one or two more had he been allowed to play the majors in the mid-sixties."

Stefan Edberg, former world No. 1: "He may well be the best. I think that Pete is the most complete player ever. There have been a lot of great players, but they didn't master all the shots as perfectly as Pete."

"I really think that he's one of the greatest ever, maybe the greatest. When he's on top of his game, he's the best I have ever played against. Unfortunately, I have never had the chance of watching Laver at his best. I watched him a little in films but it's not the same. But look at Pete today, if he was able to finish the year at No. 1 far the sixth consecutive year, it would be tremendous."

"Sure, he never won the French, and he should do everything to succeed there once. He still has one or two serious chances of doing it because after that, it will be very hard for him to keep playing at his best."

Evidently, opinions differ about this matter, which is by essence subjective. But one has to admit that the number of champions to whom Sampras is already the best ever is too important to be overlooked. And more than the Emerson record, it seems that an eventual French Open title would, if not grant unanimity, at least considerably strengthen Sampras' position for this officious title. He will not have very many more occasions of winning on the red courts of the porte d'Auteuil. But even if he never does, there is little doubt that he is already very high up in the company of an exclusive elite. And most certainly, it is not enough for him.

Paul Zimmer           

email me at: tovariche@aol.com 

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