Kevin Mitchell
Pete Sampras’s opponents might have hoped he was going to disintegrate in pain and self-doubt at this Wimbledon. But Pistol Pete showed this week he is not ready to be run out of town just yet.
The title-holder came through a third- round examination of his resolve and his aching left shin last weekend, beating Justin Gimelstob in two-and-a-quarter hours, and said afterwards: “It will probably continue to be sore … but the adrenaline definitely kicks in.”
And not just for Sampras. While the gathering of 65 former champions on Centre Court moments before his match would have served to remind him that age guns down all of us in the end – and that trying to win Wimbledon on one leg is absurd – the champion’s champion brought the place to life in a fighting victory.
In front of the tennis gods, all of them reassuringly sound and sunny, Sampras responded to adversity as only the great players can. Rod Laver, Bunny Austin, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg … they were all cheered to the grey heavens in an unprecedented parade of champions, and all returned to watch a player they would regard as one of their own.
Sampras beat Jan-Michael Gambill in the quarterfinals, and faces qualifier Vladimir Voltchkov in the semis. Voltchkov ended the run of Zimbabwe’s Byron Black in the quarterfinals, just as he had put paid to the chances of Wayne Ferreira in an earlier round. It would be unwise to bet against Sampras winning a record-equalling seventh title.
Concerns about Sampras’s creaking 28- year-old body have been apparent for a while, increasingly so at this Wimbledon. In the past 12 months alone, he has withdrawn from five tournaments, retired in the middle of a match, missed a Davis Cup tie (no change there, then) and generally resembled one of those characters who walk into ER at a quiet moment with an arm hanging off and an attitude problem.
He has been in and out of the treatment room with a pulled left quad muscle, lower back strain, a tear to his right hip flexor, back spasms, a herniated disc, a strain on his right hip flexor, lower back spasms, a tendon strain on his left ankle. At Wimbledon it is tendinitis and shin problems. If he walked in front of a bus, he’d hardly notice.
“I would have loved to have been part of the [champions’] parade,” Sampras said, “but I was getting treatment. It would have been an honour to be out there with the legends of the game.” They would surely reciprocate.
“Historically this is where I raise my game a level,” said Sampras before the quarterfinals. The statement was simple enough but it was clearly designed to send a shiver of apprehension through Gambill, and Voltchkov in the semifinals.
As for the injury, Gambill posited this view. “If you were playing Pete and he had a broken leg, you wouldn’t say the match was won.”