Salute to a champion
by Nirmal Shekar, The Hindu
August 28, 2003
THE STYLE OF leave taking in the world of sport has changed significantly since the August day 55 years ago when Don Bradman left the batting crease and walked back, eyes misting over, to the pavilion for the last time in his Test career after being bowled second ball for a duck. The standing ovation continued long after the game's greatest batsman disappeared into the dressing room. Few great champions get to sign off in such style and many careers fade into oblivion with fans unsure when and where the icons said their final goodbyes. But sports fans are unlikely to forget the day Pete Sampras retired. The tears and tributes that washed over an emotional first night of the U.S. Open tennis championship in New York on Monday underlined the extraordinary historic significance of the departure. From lay fans to VVIP guests in the invitees' box at the Arthur Ashe stadium, from former players present on the occasion to Sampras' peers, as well as millions of fans watching the brief ceremony live on television around the world, every single person would have understood the meaning of the moment.
Sport, democratic as it is, makes room for all sorts of champions. There are the charismatic, iconic figures like Muhammad Ali, whose influence spread way beyond the strictly defined boundaries of sport. Then there are the modern-day image-driven celebrity champions who rake in millions but whose place in the history of sport is debatable. Finally, there are the genuine, no-frills world beaters like Sampras, a man whose personality itself was defined by his all-conquering game, a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s. From the moment he won the first of his record 14 Grand Slam titles as a 19-year-old, at the U.S. Open in September 1990, Sampras had just one goal: to leave his mark on history. In the end, after playing his last career match at the U.S. Open in 2002, beating his arch-rival and friend Andre Agassi in the final, Sampras may have done more than that. Not only did the genial champion win more major titles than anyone else in the history of the game � he surpassed the Australian Roy Emerson's record of 12 titles when he won his seventh Wimbledon in July 2000 � in the most competitive era in the sport, he was also No. 1 in world tennis for an astonishing six years in a row.
But, then, quite apart from all the numbers that underline his genius, Sampras' greatest achievement was this: in the high noon of show-bizification of sport and media saturation, in an era when image is everything, he touched off a silent revolution in men's tennis. It takes a truly extraordinary champion to rise above all the popular yardsticks used to measure the average and the good, and to turn sporting logic of the times on its head, as Sampras did for over a decade. Fans watched Sampras because he was a great player with a world beating game built on a big serve, a versatile and powerful forehand, crisp volleys, all backed by tremendous athleticism and commitment. They celebrated his successes because he elevated the game to heights few had aspired to before. His impeccable sportsmanship and grace under pressure stood out from start to finish. In a sport over-marketed largely on under-achieving "personalities," as Sampras journeyed towards the pinnacle fans watching him came to realise they were part of something very special. And now that he is gone the question that will be debated for a long time and can never really be answered is: was he the greatest of all time?