The Toronto Star
July 31, 2000, Monday
Pete Sampras has one foot in the grave.
By tennis standards, he's a Grand Slam granddaddy - even though he's just 13 days removed from his 29th birthday. No longer does he need to blow out the candles on his cake to realize he's getting on in a young man's game.
And Sampras should know how dangerous youth can be. It was as a skinny, fresh- faced 19-year-old that he won his first of 13 Slams, knocking out veterans Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe before dusting off Andre Agassi to win the U.S. Open.
Every year, newcomers hungry for success enter the tour, ravenous for a chance to prove themselves. Every year, Sampras feels that generational gap widen. Like when he fails to recognize many of the players as he strolls into tournament locker rooms. When he pines for more time off between tournaments and wishes he could play fewer of them. And even yesterday, when he showed a charming old-world disdain for the ATP Tour's cheeky marketing campaign for its rising stars called "New balls, please."
"It's not my cup of tea," Sampras said in Toronto, where he's preparing for the $2.95 million (U.S.) Masters Series event that gets under way today.
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"They probably could find a better slogan, don't you think?"
Sampras had no problem with the up-and-comers the tour was promoting, players such as Magnus Norman, Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt. But he found the "new balls" idea distasteful in the same way he feels billboards emblazoned with " Only the ball should bounce" (as bra-booster Anna Kournikova gazes out fetchingly at the masses) witless instead of witty.
It is delightful, actually, that a guy who's not yet 30 finds advertising alluding to male genitalia offensive and is unafraid to say so. In addition to his skills, that mature sense of right and wrong has been an essential part of a 12-year career that has dominated tennis as no other man's has to date.
But don't ask him to describe himself as the finest player the game has ever produced.
"That will be one thing I will never say," Sampras said firmly, clearly feeling he needs a French Open title to deserve that mantle. "I don't think I need to say that."
And you believe him. You believe that he probably couldn't even say "Hey, am I ever good" in front of the shaving mirror without thinking he sounded really goofy.
That modesty, though, is mistakenly - and maliciously at times - thrown up as one of the few knocks against Sampras: that he's boring. But if being boring is his major flaw, then Mr. and Mrs. Sampras deserve plaques in the parenting hall of fame. Imagine raising a superstar without having to bail him out of jail or check him into the Betty Ford.
Instead, we saw their son run into the upper rows at Wimbledon after winning his seventh title to hug his weeping parents. His fiancee, Bridgette Wilson, shyly and adorably snapped photos of her honey with her pocket camera. For Sampras, it didn't get much better; having his family there, playing a huge match against Patrick Rafter and breaking Roy Emerson's record of 12 Grand Slams.
Sampras is one of those athletes who comes along once in a lifetime - like a Wayne Gretzky or Tiger Woods. Someone who is so consistently superb that we take them for granted while they're playing and don't fully appreciate the enormity of their achievements until they've retired.
Pete Sampras may have one foot in the grave. But the other one will be on your throat.