Nirmal Shekar, The Sportstar
June 21, 2003
London June 20. On a glorious summer's day worthy of Keatsean literary splendour in celebration, on Church Road in southwest London, in the borough of Wandsworth, the sights were familiar. So indeed were the sounds.
As you stepped out of the Southfields underground station, the same old newspaper vendor greeted you on the pavement and up the hill towards that great old cathedral of tennis � the All England Lawn Tennis Club � you saw everything you expected to see.
Pavement hawkers of souvenirs were putting together their temporary stalls hoping, as usual, to make a killing during the famous Wimbledon fortnight.
Contract workers were painting the doors of portable toilets for use by the thousands who'd queue up for tickets over the two weeks.
Ageing golfers were putting in overtime on the course across the road from the AELTC, a touch sad that their favourite links would be taken over by the famous tennis club during the fortnight to be used as a car park.
The charm never fades
Over three decades of visiting this anachronistic annual pageantry that is the mother of all Grand Slam events, you have seen it all. Nothing much changes in these parts. They all love their routines here. They all get addicted to the glorious old place and its grand spectacle and spend the other 50 weeks of the year craving for another chance to get back here.
And they all come back to soak in its infinite charms yet again. This is true as much too of the visitors, including the international media. Once you have been here, once who have managed to smell the lush green grass, once you have thrilled in the music of the ball hitting the racquet strings and listened to the collective ooohs and aaahs on the great centre court, this is no longer a playing arena to you as much as a place of worship.
You are in awe of the great theatre. And you cannot wait to get back here.
Yes, everybody who has a chance to come back to Wimbledon does actually come back. Except a gentleman named Pete Sampras. Someone who won a record seven titles in a magical eight-year span from 1993 to 2000.
Of course, everything is the same here this year, yet nothing will be the same once Lleyton Hewitt goes out on court to begin the defence of his title on Monday.
Wimbledon without Pete Sampras? That's like trying to remake Godfather without Marlon Brando, or seek to stage Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
It will be said during the fortnight � and it is true too � that Wimbledon will go on as ever, Sampras or no Sampras. It went on just as merrily after Bjorn Borg, who sank to his knees on the centre court each year after winning every one of his five titles between 1976 and 1980, walked away from the place, from the game.
It survived the exits of John McEnroe and Boris Becker too, a pair of champions considerably more charismatic than Sampras. And it was just as famous an event after Steffi Graf's retirement too.
After all, this business has been going on for a good 94 years before Sampras was born in 1971. So, of course it will go on. Great institutions don't fold up the moment a great player departs from its stage.
Yet, given what we were treated to by the great man in the last decade of the second millennium, how can things be the same in these parts without his presence?
The strawberries might taste the same � even if they are a touch more expensive � but the tennis won't.
For, Sampras' absence � permanent from the looks of it � might well usher in a new era in Wimbledon in the men's game. Actually, perhaps it was already ushered in last year, when Lleyton Hewitt managed to win the title playing almost every point from the back of the court.
And with the retirement of Pat Rafter and the fading away of Goran Ivanisevic, serve and volley masters of lawn tennis appear to be a dying breed � which is all the more reason why the great man will be missed during the fortnight.
Wimbledon will be just as huge a spectacle even without its greatest champion of all time. But those of us who know that there will never be a Pete Sampras again also know that Wimbledon tennis won't ever be the same again. Miss you Pete, really do; but thanks all the same. Thanks for being the player you were, the champion you were, the gentleman you were.
In my mind, the tag Wimbledon Champion will always be synonymous with Pete Sampras.