Samprasfanz. Pete Sampras News Archive
By Paul Hayward, UK Telegraph
July 4, 1999
PETE SAMPRAS is entitled to be recognised as one of the great athletes        of this vanishing 20th century. There will be those who question the right        of a tennis player to be mentioned on the same page as Muhammad Ali or Pele.        They are in urgent need of medication. Sampras's body was on Centre Court        as he recorded his sixth Wimbledon victory in seven years yesterday but        his spirit was far above.
A straight-sets victory over Andre Agassi, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, took Sampras        level with Roy Emerson's record of 12 titles in Grand Slam events. Emerson        will be an ex- record-holder very soon. Technically, Agassi is world No        1 this morning. But the computer that came up with that calculation is off        with the electronic fairies.
In the first two sets especially, Sampras's game rose to a place where        the rest of us will never go, except as dazzled voyeurs. It was sport as        transcendence. And now many followers of the game will happily give up hope        of ever seeing anything better on a tennis court.
There were 128 players in the men's singles a fortnight ago, and the other        126 must have shrivelled as they watched Sampras unravel his almost manically        intense fellow American.
For a fortnight Agassi had borne the look of a prize-fighter who had just        burst out of a gym ready to wreak havoc. For six matches, he did. Then this.
"I ran into a bus today," he said.
"This is probably the best I've played in many years," Sampras        said. "Andre brings out the best in me. He elevates my tennis to a        level that's phenomenal. I need to be at my best against him. If I'm not,        it's a long day."
It took Sampras only 1 hr 54 min to break Agassi's winning sequence of        13 matches, stretching back last month's French Open in Paris. "If        he always plays that way against me, I'm going to win two out of every 10," Agassi said.
Two is stretching it a bit. In this form, Sampras is able to levitate        like Michael Jordan. He can cut, slice, drive, lob and volley expertly.        Most of all, he can summon a champion's will to play better than he has        all fortnight, to do what's necessary and meet each threat.
Time is running out for sport's lavishly rewarded quasi pop stars to demand        inclusion in the century's absolute and unchallengeable elite. Sampras is        definitely in. The only player to have won seven Wimbledon men's titles        was a Corinthian called W C Renshaw in the 1880s. Sportsmen were so unheralded        in those days that they had to make do with initials.
Agassi - who ought to know - thinks Sampras could win three or four more        titles. Already, he has won 12 of the 14 Grand Slam finals he has contested.
The man has everything: most obviously, yesterday, that sacred capacity        to crank up his own excellence so that even the most accomplished opponent        feels as if he is trying to light a barbecue in a typhoon.
Agassi said it best: "I went out there expecting him to be a big        pain in the ass. I knew he would play big in the biggest situations. He        played some impeccable tennis at the important times. You've got to weather        his storm. When you do that he's vulnerable, but his storm was too strong        today."
The point is that Sampras's performance went way beyond what seems possible        to the eye. If a measure of greatness is how many times one feels startled,        astonished, bemused during a match, then the 24th meeting of Sampras and        Agassi felt like a display of greatness in an event that has too often descended        into an exposition of naked power.
These were the world's two best players, no doubt about that. Tim Henman        now knows the length of the voyage to the top.
The first majestic rally fizzed into being in the fourth game of the first        set, when both players began striking the ball with the kind of crispness        and range that confirms each to be in exemplary form.
With his first break of serve, Sampras let out a yelp. Agassi had been        bustling around the All England Club as if he had been sticking his fingers        in an unearthed socket. Towel, ball, towel, ball: he and the ballboy who        kept him in weapons and wipedowns were starting to become best friends.        But then Sampras's brilliance began to take hold, and Agassi's pigeon-toed        swagger began to apply itself to the less glamorous business of retrieval.
Sampras won the first set 6-3 and broke his compatriot again in the first        game of the second. "He knows he can make great things happen in a        minute and a half," Agassi said. He saved another two break points        in the second set but lost that one too, 6-4.
"Remember the French Open," someone cried, but this was not        Andrei Medvedev in the other half of the court (Agassi came back from two        sets down to win in Paris). Nostradamus would have had to have been right        for Agassi to get anything out of this match (even then it would have been        a draw).
At 1-2 and 15-all in the second set, he provided one of those images that        will endure to the end of the next century as a portrait of psychic distress.        Agassi hit a fierce backhand cross-court shot that would have beaten any        of those other 126 players in the original draw. But Sampras took off horizontally,        met the ball in mid-air in the meat of the racket, and cushioned a return        that fell like a raindrop on the other side of the net. Agassi looked as        if he had been sprayed with liquid nitrogen.
Frozen, disbelieving, he started at the spot where Sampras had played        the winner and finally looked to his corner for reassurance that he hadn't        gone mad. It happened, all right.
Sampras finished him off with two aces to take a 3-1 lead and start soaring        towards the end of the match.
There was a time not long ago when Agassi was in danger of resembling        his home town of Las Vegas: decadent, overfed, a mirage. This year, though,        he has come roaring back: an artist and a warrior capable of destroying        Patrick Rafter in straight sets. Agassi, only the fifth man to win all four        Grand Slams, must have felt his own hyper-intensity was carrying him unstoppably        through. But the greater the velocity, the harder the crash.
Agassi was more threatening in the third set but found himself trying        to retrieve two break points again at 5-5. The game was lost with a timid        backhand into the net and from there, Sampras had only to serve out for        the match. He won it, typically, with a shot that has never been seen in        the parks. An ace on his second serve.
All this, remember, in a year when Sampras has played less tennis with        less success than usual. When he pulled out of this year's Australian Open,        citing fatigue, he had competed in 27 consecutive Grand Slams. Ah, the fire        was dimming. Ha, ha. "I'm still spinning a bit. I'm still a little        overwhelmed by what I've done," he said. It was not the sixth Wimbledon        or the 12th Grand Slam that had him turning. It was the fresh, cold memory        of how sublimely he had played.