A Champion’s Mind

by Pete Sampras

  Andre had maneuvered me into playing the kind of point that was his bread and butter, and I had not just escaped the trap to win the point; it won me the set. It was like a right hook that staggers a fighter. In tennis, a moment like that can cost you a lot more than the game. I think it probably cost Andre the next set, because I more or less cruised through it without being pushed, or feeling like I was being punished, physically. I won that second set 6–3.

  With two sets in hand, my confidence soared. I had a commanding lead and just pulling even would cost Andre a lot. Still, I expected Andre to win his rounds as I would win mine. He played well to win the third set, but it took a lot out of him, and he still had a long way to go just to get on even footing. I had to be careful, though: if I went down a break in the fourth, it would be like an IV drip for Andre’s flagging spirits; he would instantly revive and get a massive surge of adrenaline and confidence. I had to dial it up, but still play “within myself.”

  For me, dialing it up always started with improving the quality of my serve, either speed- or placementwise. One of the best things about winning your service points quickly is that you’re in and out of your service game in the blink of an eye, and you can then focus and take even more chances on breaking serve. Conversely, your opponent feels pressure; he’s so busy trying to hold serve that he barely has time to think of breaking you. This can be a big factor late in a set, and it always makes life tougher for a player whose own serve isn’t a huge weapon.

  Andre and I played close through most of the fourth set, but I was serving aces and held the eleventh game with ease. I sensed that the pressure might be getting to Andre, and got the key break for 6–5, after which I served out the match.

  The win opened the floodgates for me in a number of ways. It was my seventh major, and it launched me on a run that would earn me six more majors in the next four years. The match also had a devastating effect on Andre. It put me up 9–8 in our rivalry, but more important it impacted Andre so badly that he soon fell off the radar—he admitted much later that it took him two years to recover from that devastating loss. It was too bad, because the match also certified my rivalry with Andre; nobody could push me and force me to play my best tennis the way Andre could. And nobody could call our rivalry hype cooked up by Nike anymore—it was the real deal, even though it was put on hold.

  Less than two weeks after the U.S. Open final, the Davis Cup squad reassembled in Las Vegas to host Sweden. The atmosphere in Vegas was relaxing. We gambled a little, and all gathered at Andre’s house one night for a big dinner cooked up by a Vegas chef. After the meal, Andre took a few of us for a ride in the dunes and mountains around Vegas in his Hummer.

  Our captain, Tom Gullikson, wanted everyone to be happy and comfortable, so he volunteered to scrunch up in the back cargo area of the Hummer in a kind of crouch. Soon Andre was blasting up and down these mountains, the Hummer bouncing around like crazy—it was pretty much fun for everyone but Tom, who was getting thrown around like a rag doll in the back, bumping his head and shoulders and knees. All we heard from the back was, “Ow . . . ooomph . . . eeech . . . arrraggghhhhh!”

  Tim, whose situation had continued to deteriorate, decided that he wanted to attend the tie—against his doctor’s advice. The USTA and everyone else in tennis supported the idea, and Tim made the trip as a kind of unofficial cocaptain with his brother. It was great to see him near a tennis court again—great to see what being around the game and players could still do for his spirits. But he was looking very gaunt and hollow. Anybody could tell with one glance that he was not well.

  Andre and I won our first singles matches, but the Swedes took the doubles. Andre showed up to watch that match with his right arm in a sling beneath his unzipped tracksuit. He had torn a chest muscle in his opening-day singles, and he was finished for the tie. We lost the doubles, but the following day Todd, replacing Andre, stepped in and crafted a tidy three-set win over Enqvist to clinch the tie. The USTA then asked the Swedish officials if they objected to Tim sitting on court alongside his brother (and our captain) during my meaningless match against Wilander. The Swedes, ever the good guys, agreed.

  After the tie, the U.S. team room was awash with the usual assortment of friends, family, USTA types, ITF types, and garden-variety hangers-on. At one point, I glanced across the room and made eye contact with Tim. His face by that time was starting to hollow out, and his eyes—an intense blue to begin with—were practically burning. For a second, we looked at each other, and each of us knew what the other was thinking: This should be our moment. All these other people are extraneous. This is about the two of us, and nothing can take away what we’ve accomplished, or the trust we have. I’ve never forgotten that moment or that look. It’s with me to this day as my enduring memory of Tim.

  So it was on to Moscow for the November final, and I knew how much Tim wanted to see me lead the squad to a triumph. It was a tough ask, because the Russians, predictably, held the tie on very slow red clay, indoors. For them, it was the right move, even though Jim Courier and Andre Agassi could be as tough on clay as anyone. There was only one hitch—Andre was still nursing his chest injury. We hoped until the eleventh hour that Andre would be good to go, meaning that my job would be a manageable one: making sure we won the doubles, while Andre and Jim would do the heavy lifting in singles. I had confidence that we would win the doubles—I liked playing Davis Cup doubles with Todd Martin and, as ambivalent as I was about clay, I played doubles on it happily, with confidence.

  We arrived in Moscow on a Saturday, six days before the Friday start. Andre had sent word that even though he couldn’t play, he would attend the tie as a show of team spirit and solidarity. That sealed the deal. Tom declared that I was going to play singles unless, of course, I felt like I was the wrong man for the job, and made enough of a fuss about the decision. How’s that for an awkward spot? What was I going to do, say, “Nah, Tom, I’m not up for it. Let Todd or Richey go out there”? I could see all the makings of Lyon revisited—a full-on disaster.

  But the team spirit in Moscow was great, and fortunately for us, by then Russia was changing. We were well taken care of in a fine hotel with great food. Our comfort level with one another was high. And it really helped boost our morale when Andre showed up in Moscow, making the long trip at the end of a long year, even though he was destined to just sit on the bench without ever hitting a ball. We even did a little sightseeing—we went to Red Square one day, and went through the line at Lenin’s Tomb, where we posed for the usual PR pictures. I was happy to have my dad and sister Stella along on the trip. It wasn’t that Dad was fired up about Davis Cup; he was just intrigued by Russia. I was like, What am I, Dad, chopped liver? But with him around, I didn’t want to play lousy.

  I opened the tie against Andrei Chesnokov, one of the era’s most dogged retrievers. Chessy was a dirt devil who loved red clay; he specialized in running down every ball and outlasting opponents. He wasn’t big, but he was lean and sinewy, with great stamina. Getting him on clay was a tough assignment at the best of times. It didn’t help my cause that the red clay was not just slow, it was actually muddy. The Russians had watered the hell out of it, trying to make it as slow as possible. The only bright spot for me was that in that enormous Olympic stadium, the crowd wasn’t much of a factor. They probably had close to twenty thousand fans in there, but it felt like far fewer because they were so far from the court.

  Knowing how skilled Chessy was on clay, I started pressing right from the onset. I felt obliged to win points quickly, and made some poor decisions. That I wasn’t in the best of shape also made me want to force the action. I wondered what I had gotten myself into—I wasn’t even supposed to be playing singles! But in spite of all that, I was mentally into the match. I figured I’d just hang in there, let the ball ride, see what the day brings. It was just a tennis match, and the fact that I had no business winning it made my life easier.

  The biggest thing I had going for me probably was that I wa
s Pete Sampras, and Chessy knew it and I knew it. He knew what it would mean to beat me, the top player in the world (I had regained my number one ranking from Andre by then), with the hopes and national pride of all Russia riding on his shoulders in a Davis Cup final. Talk about pressure. Chesnokov won the first set, and I think that caused him to let down his guard and slightly lose his focus. Such things happen all the time; they’re the mental equivalent of taking your eye off the ball.

  I made just enough winners and won just enough points on the attack to keep Chessy a little off balance, and I won the next two close sets. Chessy regrouped—overall he was a good competitor with a strong mind and will—and took the fourth-set tiebreaker. But in the fifth set, I hit out a little more freely, and he got kind of stuck trying to figure out if he should force the action or let me take the initiative, hoping I might screw up, or tire.

  Chessy took the latter course of action (which is always more tempting), the way baseliners often do. He basically left the matter in my hands. I didn’t hesitate to take the initiative, and poured on the heat. I got to match point, but just as I whaled on a forehand, I began to feel myself cramping up. I ran to the net behind my shot. As Chesnokov drew a bead and let his passing shot fly, I lost control of my limbs, seized up, and collapsed.

  Luckily, Chessy missed the pass and it was over. I had won it.

  On the bench, the U.S. team, seeing that I was in agony, rushed to the court. If you’ve ever seen anyone cramping, you know it isn’t a pretty sight. Cramps make you do crazy contortions, even though they don’t do lasting damage. Our Davis Cup trainer, Bobby Russo, and our longtime team doctor, George Fareed, bolted onto the court; they started hauling me up.

  Normally, Dr. Fareed is about as quiet a guy as you’ll find anywhere. But he started yelling, “Get out of the way! Move!” He roared, “Coming through!”

  It was like I’d been shot in the head or something, and they were trying to get me to the emergency room. Despite my discomfort, I found it terribly funny, and suddenly I was laughing my head off because Doc was making such a big deal out of it. They finally dragged me off to the locker room and gave me a pill that quickly helped stop the cramping, but every time I thought back to Doc Fareed’s panicked reaction, I burst out laughing again.

  Unfortunately, Jim lost the second rubber on Friday to Yevgeny Kafelnikov, leaving us tied at 1–1. When Tom decided that I would be playing singles, he penciled in Todd and Richey Reneberg as the doubles team. But with the score tied, Tom had second thoughts. Anytime the tie is deadlocked at 1–1 the team that wins the doubles goes into the final day of singles with a huge advantage—and much less pressure. That’s one of the beauties of Davis Cup—the importance of doubles, the game that plays second fiddle to singles at regular tournaments.

  Tom asked me how I felt about playing the doubles. I said, “Well, I’ve had better days . . . but yeah, why not?” So the next day, Todd and I went out and played a very solid match to take the doubles. The most valuable by-product of Gully’s shrewd move was that it took the Russians by surprise. Suddenly they were down 1–2, on the brink of elimination and, despite their home-court advantage, looking at having to beat two of the very top players in the world. That clay was the surface probably provided little comfort after what I had done on day one. I was the dominant number one player in the world, and I had taken personal control of the tie.

  I was first up on Sunday. I felt a little heavy-legged but I knew I was one match away from a great achievement. And I was going up against Kafelnikov, a guy I always enjoyed playing—a guy who was good, and who lorded it over a lot of guys ranked lower down, but who always admired my game. Now he had to beat me to keep his nation’s Davis Cup hopes alive.

  For no good reason I can name, I played a great match at the most opportune of moments. Call it fate. Call it lucking out. Call it whatever. The bottom line is that Yevgeny never had a chance. I got into the zone a little bit. Surviving that Chesnokov match had really loosened me up, made me feel anything was possible, and winning the doubles didn’t hurt. I mixed up my game against Kafelnikov. I served and volleyed a bit, stayed back some, kept him off balance by alternately going for my big shots and then hanging back, seeing what—if anything—he could bring to hurt me.

  I led 6–2, 6–4, and Kafelnikov’s last glimmer of hope flashed by in the third-set tiebreaker. I went up 6–4, and then served an ace right up the middle to end it. Tom rushed onto the court, and he was very, very emotional. First thing he whispered to me was, “I wish Tim could have been here to see that.”

  It was a touching moment and seconds later the rest of the squad engulfed us, and we let it all hang out, celebrating on the court. Andre, who had borne the load with me all year, was there to share in the joy. I really appreciated that he had sucked it up and made the trip over. He could have blown it off, especially after seeing his amazing year go down the tubes after that devastating loss to me in the U.S. Open final followed by his chest injury.

  It didn’t seem like it at the time, but that Davis Cup performance would become a highlight of my career and a chapter in Davis Cup lore and legend. Yet it barely made the media radar in the United States. I’m not sure there was a single American reporter in Moscow—other than the ubiquitous Bud Collins. I still can’t explain how the win came about, but I have a funny feeling that the desperate straits in which we found ourselves loosened up the team. We had nothing to lose and felt no real pressure.

  Our celebration carried over to the locker room after the dead fifth rubber, and that night we had a function with the usual assortment of USTA and ITF bigwigs, and the Davis Cup sponsors. And that’s a weird thing about Davis Cup. You feel this incredible camaraderie when you’re in it, and this wonderful bond with the team, the coach, even the support personnel like Doc Fareed and Bobby Russo. You win, and the best moment is in the team room or locker room, before it’s opened up to all the officials. You pop the champagne with your buddies, have a few sips, have a few laughs, and then get ready for the official banquet. After that, everyone goes his separate way. You don’t even travel together, because you’re usually headed for different places.

  It’s a lot like that classic Western movie The Magnificent Seven. You’re an eclectic group of gunslingers who come together to save the town, fending off the bad guys. Then when the job is done, you all drift off down the trail. Like those gunfighters, you’re a loner. A tennis player.

  I finished number one for the year for the third consecutive time in 1995, even though Andre held the top spot for most of that time. To clinch the ranking, I had to beat Boris Becker in the final of the Paris Indoors in November. If I had finished the year a close number two to Andre, the tenor of my entire career might have changed. For one thing, setting the record for years at number one wouldn’t have become an all-consuming goal for me the way it ultimately did. But I’m jumping ahead.

  Shortly after Davis Cup, I went on to Munich to play the Grand Slam Cup. When I arrived, Boris Becker pulled me aside and paid me one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received. If you remember how serious Boris could sound—how downright presidential—you’ll appreciate this. He looked at me and said, “That Davis Cup performance in Moscow was unbelievable, Pete. That’s why you’re number one in the world, no question.” Given that our rivalry was intense (I had beaten him in the Wimbledon final just months earlier), it was a generous thing to say.

  As the months and years passed, I would savor and treasure that Moscow Davis Cup accomplishment with increasing joy—I was especially pleased that it had occurred on clay. This was one fruit of the commitment I embraced after the 1992 U.S. Open final.

  A few important threads of my career ran together in 1995. There was the emerging possibility that I might break Jimmy Connors’s long-standing record of finishing number one for five years in a row—a mark that some thought untouchable. It was also the official start of the glory days of my rivalry with Andre; it just went to a different level when we split those two hard-
court finals at Indian Wells and Miami. We were over the hump; we were a hot topic in sports conversations, among general sports fans as well as tennis nuts. And we presented enough of a contrast to make people feel passionate about why they preferred one of us to the other.

  The sad part for me was that all of that played out against the background of Tim’s illness. Although everyone, including the media, was respectful of our privacy, people invariably asked about Tim and expressed their sympathies. I had to bear a great deal of sorrow and uncertainty in 1995, and I believe I handled it pretty well. The public appeared to see me in a warmer light from that point on. I think they felt more empathy toward me.

  But there was a price to pay for the way I overloaded my competitive plate in 1995, and the first payment came due just weeks after the Davis Cup final in Moscow, at the 1996 Australian Open. I entered that event after having had less than a month of “off season” following the Grand Slam Cup (I pulled out of that with an ankle injury), and there was no way I was ready, much less eager, to play.

  I made the trip, though, and I played and ended up losing in the third round to an Aussie, Mark Philippoussis. The conditions were perfect for an upset: Mark had an adoring home crowd behind him and it was a night match, with some eighteen thousand fans jammed into Rod Laver Arena, hungry for an upset. Mark just overpowered me—he was in the mythic zone, and when that happens to a player who has as big and versatile a game as Philippoussis, you’re in trouble.

  Down deep, I didn’t feel too badly about the loss. I’d done my best. It might have been different if I’d been able to have six or eight weeks off to recharge my batteries and prepare for the new year. It also might have been different if it were any other major but the Australian. I never really liked playing in Melbourne, and my results over the years reflected it (I won just two titles there). This surprised many people, because on the surface the Australian Open might have looked like the perfect Grand Slam for me.