LONDON -- Pete Sampras will attempt to
salvage some pride from a disappointing season next week as the
tennis circuit switches to grass and the booming servers and net
prowlers come into their own.
|  | | Pete Sampras' defense of his Ericsson Open title ended in the third round to "hungry" 18-year-old Andy Roddick. |
After succumbing in the second round on the slow clay of
Roland Garros last week to Spaniard Galo Blanco, Sampras
accepted a wild card for the Queen's Club, the traditional
warm-up tournament for Wimbledon.
He will be joined on the slick greens of West London by
63 other pretenders to his grass-court supremacy in a draw that
includes no Spaniards.
The lack of Spanish entrants at Queen's and Sampras's
failure at Roland Garros show how difficult it is for modern
players to excel on every surface.
Spaniards, so adept from the back of the court on the clay
of their homeland, find it as hard to adapt their game to grass
as Sampras does to tackle the slow surfaces.
Sampras, who has won a record 13 Grand Slam tournaments
including seven Wimbledons, has never taken the Paris crown.
Sampras, 29, is seeded second at Queen's at the
opposite end of the draw from the man who beat him in the U.S.
Open final -- Marat Safin of Russia.
Safin also suffered in Paris, from his own bad temper and a
a lack of consistency, going down 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 0-6, 6-1 to
Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in the third round.
His half of the draw includes 18-year-old American prodigy
Andy Roddick, who was forced to pull out of the third round in Paris
with a hamstring injury, but is raring to go for Wimbledon.
"I like the grass. It helps my serve," said an upbeat
Roddick after his French disappointment.
Roddick's big serve is fast approaching the speeds of
British No. 2 Greg Rusedski, who holds the record measured
at 149 mph and is seeded 12th at Queen's.
Rusedski's hopes and those of compatriot and fourth seed Tim Henman
always soar on home soil where they can put their serve and
volley game into practice.
Reigning champion Lleyton Hewitt of Australia, who is
proving more of an all-surface player than many of his rivals,
is seeded third in London after reaching the quarterfinals in
Paris. Hewitt beat Sampras 6-4, 6-4 in last year's final.
None of the top eight seeds will be in action until the
second round here but several old hands on the grass, including
Croatia's Goran Ivanisevic and Switzerland's Marc Rosset will be
out for some early Wimbledon workouts on Monday.
Queen's often offers a good indication of form in the run up
to Wimbledon. Boris Becker won the first of his four Queen's
titles as a relatively unknown 17-year-old in 1985 before
becoming the youngest Wimbledon champion less than a month
later.
John McEnroe won here four times, Sampras has triumphed
twice and Jimmy Connors, Michael Stich, Stefan Edberg, Todd
Martin and Mark Philippoussis also have taken the title. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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