| | Associated Press
WIMBLEDON, England -- Rarely emotional, Pete Sampras stood
on Centre Court with his eyes glistening from tears as he scanned
the stands in search of his mother and father.
|  | | Rarely emotional, Sampras couldn't fight an onslaught of tears after winning Sunday. |
They had never seen him win a Grand Slam, and now here he was
Sunday, king of the slams, and he wanted his parents to share in
his greatest moment.
"I wanted them to be a part of it," Sampras said. "As much as
I like to say I'm going to be back here every year, there's no
guarantees."
What they witnessed was the thrill of a lifetime, their son
serving himself two huge pieces of history, passing Roy Emerson for
the most Grand Slam championships and tying Willie Renshaw, a
player in the 1880s, for the most Wimbledon titles.
Twinkling flashbulbs lit up the stadium like fireworks in the
night when Sampras kissed the trophy once again after beating
Patrick Rafter 6-7 (10), 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-2.
Sampras, 28, showed how much this victory meant to him when he
bent over in tears immediately after his final service winner and
wept some more with his parents.
When he spotted them after a few moments, he scaled the steps
eagerly while they came down to meet him in the middle, and there
they all embraced tearfully as they told him they loved him and
were proud of him.
Sampras himself took pride in capturing at last the Grand Slam
record he had been chasing since winning Wimbledon a year ago.
"Time will tell if it will be broken," Sampras said. "I think
in the modern game, it could be difficult. It's a lot of
commitment, a lot of good playing at big times. It's possible. I
mean, the next person might be 8 years old, hitting at a park
somewhere around the world."
|  | | After his win, Sampras climbed into the stands to give his parents, including father Sam, a hug. |
Sampras has won 28 straight matches at Wimbledon, extending his
mark there to 53-1 over the past eight years.
"This is the greatest player ever at Wimbledon," three-time champion John McEnroe said. "This guy's not someone you
can put anyone up against, nobody. No one has ever come close to
Pete."
Sampras is only the sixth men's player in history to win
Wimbledon four straight years. The last to do it was Bjorn Borg,
who won five straight from 1976-80.
No Wimbledon title had ever come with more pain and difficulty
than Sampras suffered in this one, dealing with acute tendinitis
above his left ankle from the second round on. He couldn't practice
between matches, and couldn't warm up before them until the final.
No final took longer to win or ended later than this one with four
hours of rain delaying the start and interrupting play twice.
It ended at 8:57 p.m., after 3 hours, 2 minutes of actual play
on a Centre Court that has no lights, and they could not have
played much longer. If Rafter, the two-time U.S. Open champion, had
won the fourth set, they would have had to return on Monday.
"It was difficult in the end," Sampras said. "We only had
maybe 10 minutes left to playing. I think we both knew by 9 o'clock
they were going to call it. It would have been a tough night of
sleep.
"It's not easy to play out there under these conditions. The
nerves, the emotional roller coaster we both went through today,
coming back, on and off, on and off. It's just amazing how it all
worked out. It really is amazing how this tournament just panned
out for me. I didn't really feel like I was going to win here. I
felt I was struggling."
Sampras had said before the match that as long as his right arm
held up, he would be a threat. It held up fine. Rafter couldn't
return Sampras' blur of serves in the afternoon, and he surely
couldn't return them in the fading light. Sampras served 27 aces at
up to 133 mph, and had 46 more unreturned serves as he averaged an
incredible 123 mph on first serves.
Sampras faced only two break points and won once more without
yielding a single game on his serve. Rafter couldn't break him in
21 service games, just as Boris Becker couldn't break him in 19 in
1995. In his seven title matches, Sampras has dropped serve only
four times in 131 games.
The only time Sampras buckled was in the first-set tiebreaker.
He had lost only four points on serve in the first set, three of
them on double-faults, and double-faults came back to haunt in the
tiebreaker. He hit one to fall behind 10-9, saved that set-point,
but then lost the set with his fifth double-fault.
"We all choke," said Sampras, who wound up with 12
double-faults. "No matter who you are, you just get in the heat of
the moment. The title could be won or lost in a matter of a couple
of shots. I really felt it slipping away. I felt like I was
outplaying him for the first set. I didn't get the break. I was
outplaying him a little bit in the second. Comes down to a
tiebreaker, anything can happen. Just roll the dice."
They rolled the dice in the second-set tiebreaker, and this time
Rafter threw snake eyes. Serving with a 4-1 lead, he netted a
volley, double-faulted, then netted a forehand to let Sampras tie
it. Sampras then smacked a service winner and won his fifth
straight point with a stunning inside-out forehand crosscourt that
zipped past Rafter. Sampras punctuated the moment with a big
uppercut in the air, his first demonstration of emotion in the
match, and two points later he put the set away with a solid
volley.
Right there, the match was virtually won.
"There's a lot of nerves out there," Sampras said. "We both
were feeling it. I lost my nerve in the first set. He lost his
nerve 4-1 in the second breaker. ... Somehow I got through that
tiebreaker. From a matter of feeling like I was going to lose the
match, I felt like I was going to win the match within two minutes.
That's grass court tennis."
Rafter admitted the tension got to him in that tiebreaker.
"I did get a little bit tight," he said. "It was an
opportunity for me to go up two sets to love. From there it's a
very tough position, as Pete knows, to come back from that. But
that's what happens when you get tight."
When Sampras broke Rafter for the first time for a 3-2 lead in
the third set, the Australian bounced his racket on its head twice
as he headed for his chair. He had the look of a man staring at
defeat, even if the end was more than an hour away. As the light
faded, so did Rafter, going down another break, and going down
hard.
"I wasn't getting his serve back anyway," Rafter said. "I
didn't really care if it was midnight, really. When you're down 5-2
in the third, double break, mate, it's sort of hard work being out
there. Mentally, I sort of had done my bolt."
| |
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Sampras' all-time Grand Slam singles results
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