Sampras sees career starting to slip away

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By DARRELL FRY

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 13, 2001

Usually this is how it starts. With a slip here or a stumble there. If they are smart, and not all of them are, they get out before the bottom completely falls out.

This is where we find Pete Sampras today, teetering on the cliff, still able to maintain balance but nervously close to going over the side.

He has arrived for the season-opening Australian Open that begins Monday. And as usual, he is one of the favorites, a former champion with plenty of marquee value.

He has been saying all the right things, about the joys of being newly married. About still having plenty of tread on the tires even though they are almost 30 years old. About how he has more Grand Slam titles to win.

"There is not a problem with motivation," Sampras told reporters after arriving in Australia. "I have trained very hard through December and I feel in good shape."

You want to believe him. You want to believe he still has his magic in that clunky bag he brings to the court.

You want to believe someone is going challenge Tiger Woods this season, too, but you know better.

Oh, he still might win some major titles, maybe even a Grand Slam event. He might even win Australia during the next two weeks.

But, sadly, the ATP Tour no longer belongs to him. It has multiple owners now, guys with names that may be unfamiliar. Safin. Kuerten. Kafelnikov. Don't feel bad if you don't recognize them. Trust me, you're not alone.

Do you realize Sampras is not No. 1 going to the Australian Open for the first time in eight years? He is, in fact, No. 3, the lowest he has started a season since 1993.

Instead of dominating the tour, he now dominates on grass, specifically Wimbledon. The last Slam he won other than Wimbledon was the Australian Open four years ago.

"He's not over the hill. He's on the other side of the hill," said former pro Patrick McEnroe, who has been watching Sampras closely since recently becoming our Davis Cup captain. "It's more difficult for him to win any of the other Grand Slams (besides) Wimbledon, but he does have a chance at the others."

A chance?

This is a guy who used to win Grand Slam tournaments even when he was so sick he puked on the court. He used to win even when his heart was shattered and his eyes were swollen with tears for his deceased coach.

He's healthy and happy now, yet all he has is "a chance."

"As you get older," Sampras admitted, "it becomes more difficult to compete at the same rate."

Of course it does. And, as you slip in the rankings as Sampras has, it gets even more difficult.

Take Sampras' draw in Melbourne. If he were the top seed like Gustavo Kuerten, he'd have a chump like Gaston Gaudio in the first round, a match that might allow him to conserve some energy for the more important late rounds.

But as the third seed, Sampras gets Karol Kucera, a Slovak with top-10 potential who whipped Sampras in Melbourne in 1998 to reach the semifinals. Plus, if the draw holds, Sampras will have to confront big guns like Andre Agassi and U.S. Open champion Marat Safin earlier than usual.

The same thing could happen at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. That is, if injuries allow him to play all four Slams.

Suffice to say, he could have a hard way to go. Which brings up a natural question.

Why bother?

Folks, Sampras didn't win all those Wimbledons and hold the No. 1 ranking by being anything than unremittingly dedicated to his craft. It was routine for him to train Christmas Day, to tear himself away from his family in Los Angeles so his conditioning masters in Florida could push him to exhaustion.

He did it because he's a competitor. He did it because he had things to prove, people to beat and places to conquer.

But with the exception of the French Open, which he's never going to win anyway, he has pretty much won everything. He has the tour record for career Grand Slam titles. He has the one for consecutive year-end No. 1 rankings, too.

He has money. And he's happily married.

"The pressure is off because nobody is talking about the records anymore," Sampras said, "but I still want to win."

And he will. He just won't do it nearly as often or convincingly as before.

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