by Pete Sampras
But there was this little problem of actually having to play on that grass, instead of merely watching others do it. And that problem was relatively simple: I could hold serve easily and still lose matches 7–6, 7–6, 7–6. Despite the hype, grass-court tennis isn’t about the serve; it’s all about the return. My game was developed on hard courts, where you have a pretty good look at serves, especially second serves. You didn’t get that on most grass courts in the early 1990s, especially against great grass-court players who knew how to keep their service games safe with serve-and-volley tennis.
Tennis on grass was all about holding serve and finding ways to eke out those one or two breaks of serve that determine the outcome of a match. If a guy got lucky and framed back a return winner or two and you made an error . . . good-bye set. It seemed like a crapshoot; it was unfair. Another thing that bothered me more than it should have, early on, was the erratic bounces you invariably get on grass. This problem was more pronounced in the events leading up to Wimbledon and in the late stages of the main event, when heavy use really beat up the courts.
A related issue was the different movement you needed to use on grass. You had to play from more of a crouch, sorely testing your hamstrings and lower back. That’s because the bounce on grass is relatively low, as well as unpredictable. That called for plenty of adjustments, but that part I could deal with—I was limber enough to make those last-second changes. Also, on grass you needed to hit a ton of passing shots against any opponent who had a big to huge serve. That was unfamiliar to me, because on other courts my return and ground games were good enough to make it tough for guys to attack me.
That’s about it for the laundry list of complaints. Suffice it to say I was so negative about grass by the time I started working with Tim that even John McEnroe, who struggled with the British crowd but never with the grass, got on my case about it. We were practicing side by side on the Aorangi Park practice courts one day in 1992, and I was having a frustrating time of it, and letting Tim know. I heard John say out of the side of his mouth, “You’ve got to get rid of that negative attitude.” I still remember that—something about the way he said it made something click inside me.
In the two weeks leading up to Wimbledon in 1993, I had the growing feeling that I had finally figured out the grass-court technique. It all hinged on my return game. Tim had shortened up my swings, especially on my backhand return. He wanted me always to keep the racket in front of me, because there was rarely enough time for a backswing, never mind a big roundhouse one. He also wanted me to use an opponent’s pace to block the ball back. When an opponent was attacking on grass, you were fine just slipping the ball by on either side, or hitting such short, soft returns that the guy would have a lot of trouble doing anything threatening with his volley.
During the calm before the Wimbledon storm, we weren’t doing drills or anything too intense. We just focused on sharpening up my returns. And Tim kept telling me that I ought to be extremely hard to beat. Tim was doing all he could to make me a more confident, assertive player. It was pretty straightforward stuff on grass, and Tim sensed that my biggest challenge would be having the confidence and courage to play the way he knew I could.
The Wimbledon draw gave me a pretty tough row to hoe. My half was loaded with guys who weren’t necessarily big stars but who knew how to play on grass. In the first three rounds, I had to beat two Aussies (Neil Borwick and Jamie Morgan) and a Zimbabwean (Byron Black), although the payoff was a round-of-16 meeting with Andrew Foster, a low-ranked British player who had somehow snuck through. This was dangerous, though, because the British are perpetually starving for a British male Wimbledon champ—something they hadn’t produced since Fred Perry in the 1930s.
Even a British optimist couldn’t envision Foster winning Wimbledon, but upsetting world number one Pete Sampras, who had always been vulnerable at Wimbledon, wasn’t a bad start. So Foster was being carried on a wave of adulation and hope, and he was having the run of his life at the only tournament that really matters to the vast majority of his countrymen. To make matters worse for me, we were assigned to the most remote court on the grounds, Court 13.
Technically, 13 was one of the main or “show” courts, because it had a towering stand of portable aluminum bleachers on one side of the court. (In contrast, the “field” courts, where they usually put obscure players, have very little seating room.) But it was first-come, first-served seating at 13, and anyone who had a ticket or pass that got him onto the Wimbledon grounds could stake out a place there. That meant the most passionate and enthusiastic fans would be there, but also the rowdiest, most partisan—and most inebriated.
The matches scheduled before ours went long, so it was early evening by the time Foster and I took the court. That gave fans plenty of time to lube their pipes with British lagers or the traditional fruity Pimm’s cups. I was determined not to get into a war out there, because that’s just the kind of situation that could spin out of control. I played nearly flawless tennis to win the first two sets, losing just three games.
But Foster, stoked out of his gourd by the occasion and the vocal fans, hung tough in the third set. We stayed on serve through six, eight, ten games—by which time the crowd, sensing life in Foster, was really getting into it. It was also getting toward twilight. All the elements that a favorite dreads were falling into place: lousy conditions, unruly fans, a lead that could slip away.
Still, I figured that in the worst case I could just extend the match until it was called because of darkness, and regroup to put the guy away the following day. But something inside me didn’t want to do that. Something in me really wanted to bear down, dig deep, and put the guy out. This was part of wiping away that bitter aftertaste that had lingered in my mouth after the last U.S. Open final. Foster was no Edberg, and Court 16 was not Louis Armstrong Stadium, but in its own way this was a pivotal moment for me.
I hung in there and got to the tiebreaker, where I took care of my serve and greased out a few returns to stop Foster’s run. As soon as I won match point, I flung my arms in the air, turned to the crowd, and yelled, “Take that, you motherf#$@&%rs!”
The photographers courtside heard exactly what I said and, in England, where the tabloid press is a real force, that spelled trouble. The “Fleet Street boys” (and girls) who write the tabs are exceptionally good at digging up information and blowing up routine incidents into front-page news. One of their favorite tricks at Wimbledon is working hand-in-hand with the photographers, who are positioned much closer to the action than the writers. In fact, they can hear and see just about everything a player says or does during a match. And they definitely heard my taunt, even if most of the fans it was meant for did not.
When I went to my press conference, I felt relaxed and proud. The front row was filled with guys who were very well dressed, for reporters. It’s one of those crazy ironies that the people who write the most tacky and irresponsible stories in the British tabloids always dress impeccably, right down to wearing pocket handkerchiefs or flowers pinned to their lapels. And so this one perfectly attired guy says, in his perfect British accent, “Is it true that you called the British crowd a group of ‘motherf#$@&%rs’?”
I froze up. It hadn’t even occurred to me that this could be a big deal. I’ll never forget the discomfort I felt at that moment—or that I wussed out. I flat-out denied having said what I did. It maybe wasn’t the right thing to do; I felt funny about it. But the last thing I needed was to get in a big fight over a thoughtless remark tossed out in the heat of combat. Not that my denial mattered—the incident was all over the papers the next day anyway, and suddenly it seemed that all of England hated me. Put it down to a thoughtless comment—and the power of the tabloids.
Of course, the toughest part of my 1993 Wimbledon still lay ahead of me: a quarterfinal pairing with the defending champ and my emerging rival, Andre Agassi. We had a tense, high-quality struggle, with multiple service breaks. The match went down to the wire, see-sawing ri
ght into and through most of the fifth set. To my advantage, Andre looked like he was feeling the pressure of defending his first Grand Slam title, and the surface was playing fast. I knew I could take care of my serve; it was just a matter of finding a way to break. It was a very high quality match, but the air totally went out of it when I finally got a break late in the fifth set and then served it out.
I played Boris Becker in the semifinals; he was already a multiple Wimbledon champion and an established icon. We had a tug-of-war for the first set, and I won it in a tiebreaker that seemed to break his will. I capitalized on single service breaks in the next two sets to wrap up a satisfying straight-setter. Ours was the later match, so I got to watch portions of the earlier semi between Jim Courier and Stefan Edberg. Like most everyone else, I was expecting an Edberg win, because he was such a good grass-court player. But Courier was a battler on any surface, and he found ways to win. In one of his finest moments, given the circumstances, he punched through to the final.
I would play my first Wimbledon final against a guy I’d more or less grown up with, a calm, steady, worldly guy who—unlike me—never lost matches because he got discouraged. Although we were no longer close friends, we didn’t have a problem with each other, either. We would say hi in the hallways or locker rooms, and if we found ourselves sitting side by side in the training room, or a hotel restaurant, we would chitchat.
Many people felt it was unfair that I had taken the top ranking from Jim, who clearly was performing better than me on the Grand Slam stages. But I was undeterred, and determined to hold on to the number one ranking. More to the point, while Jim had played very well on some big occasions, I had beaten him in the four finals we’d played and enjoyed a 3–0 edge on him in Grand Slam battles.
I was nervous from the moment I woke up on the day of the final—it was the opposite of how I’d felt before playing Eberg in the 1992 U.S. Open final. I’d slept horribly and, although I didn’t throw up, my stomach was so jumpy I had trouble eating. I was haunted by memories of the ’92 Open. This was my first major final since then, and I experienced something new—the fear of losing. I felt it would be devastating if this chance, too, slipped away. It felt less like I was going to play a tennis match than to stand trial, and I had no idea what the outcome would be. Although I had played a few dozen tournament finals by then, this was a Grand Slam and it was going to be more like my first time.
As much as I’d been through since September of 1990, this was still just my third major final. I was 1–1, and had been badly shaken up by the one I lost. I didn’t know what lay in store, and there was no longer any place to hide. Whatever happened, it wasn’t going to be a joyride with nothing to lose. I was the favorite—there’s pressure right there—because of the advantage my serve-and-volley game provided on the grass.
Tim wanted me to impose my game on Jim—smother him with a serve-and-volley display. Jim used pretty extreme grips and fired his forehand with rifle-like power and accuracy, but if I could keep the ball low and keep him from setting up to unload the way he did on clay, I might keep him off balance. But Tim also knew I was capable of getting down on myself, and even wilting in the heat.
My prefinal warm-up with Tim was brief; I was distracted and, instead of taking a leisurely hit to get the blood flowing and find my game, I kind of raced through it. I just wanted it to be 2 P.M. so I could face my moment of reckoning. All the while the knowledge pressed in on me: the job doesn’t end when you get to the final; in some ways, that’s just the beginning. Your tournament is like a sand castle. You lose the final and it’s like the big wave came and, in seconds, washed away all that you had built. The reality is that nobody remembers the guy who loses the final. I remembered my dad and that acid comment he made in Louisiana: Look, that reporter is talking to Mal now.
The tension was excruciating. It was the Fourth of July, and hotter than hell. But as soon as Jim and I started the warm-up on Centre Court, everything went away—and I mean everything. All the anxiety, nerves, and pressure. To fall back on a familiar phrase, I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my shoulders. Thirty-six hours of intense pressure just went out the window. I had this acute realization that I could finally breathe, and it felt great. I’ll never forget that feeling. The weight of my shoes was the only thing that kept me from floating away.
I’d hit with Jim so often through our young careers that I almost felt his ball coming off the strings, and that familiarity made me even more comfortable. And it also hit me that this wasn’t just a major final—it was the Wimbledon final. The end match at a tournament I grew up watching on TV. I was aware of the Royal Box, that dark green enclosure where the spectators had a lot more room than the ordinary schmoes, and sat in wicker armchairs with tan-and-green cushions. The ball echoes on Centre Court in a deeply satisfying way, because it’s small, close, and partially covered.
From the start, I played well—very well. But it was never easy against Jim, and I had to take care of my serve and look for my opportunities to break him, which didn’t materialize in the first two sets until the tiebreakers. In a way, this was the dangerous aspect of grass-court tennis personified. I dominated with my serve (I had twenty-two aces in the match), and backed it with precise volleys. But solving Jim’s serve was a far tougher assignment. As we arrived at each tiebreaker, I was well aware that an errant shot by me here, or a great or lucky shot by him there, would win him the set.
My serve and volley carried me through the first-set tiebreaker. The decisive point of the match probably was a set point Jim had in the second-set tiebreaker, at 6–5. At that point, I kind of mishit a volley. It was a strange floater that looked like it was going to sail long and give Jim the set, but it died in the air and nicked the baseline to tie it up in the breaker, 6–6. Jim was discouraged and I leaped on my chance, ending the set two points later with a running crosscourt forehand. Later Jim would hit the nail on the head when he contemplated his missed set-point chance: “It’s just grass-court tennis—roll the dice.”
But even with two sets in hand, the job wasn’t nearly done. In fact, the enormous relief I felt when I won the second set led to a huge letdown on my part. Serving the second game of the third set, I double-faulted on break point and that put a new puff of wind into Jim’s sails. I managed to get the break back, but I was still drained from all the nervous energy I had expended, and although I was still playing hard and playing well, I was starting to feel fatigued.
I knew better than to show my fatigue. I needed to keep my shoulders up and squared away. This was something Tim had worked hard to impress on me in the eighteen months that we’d been working together, so I pushed myself. I told myself not to dig too deep a hole. But Jim broke me again in the eighth game, and then he served out the set with an ace.
We battled on serve for five games in the fourth set, and I sensed that I was in trouble. And that’s when my newfound determination kicked in. A year earlier, I might have wilted in the sun and let the fourth set slip away and then—who knows? I felt the truth and reality of that possibility in my gut, but I didn’t think about it. I was always good at shutting out the doubt. I forced myself to fight harder—harder than I ever had before. I pulled my game together and I broke Jim in the sixth game of the fourth set with another running forehand pass.
Suddenly I had room to breathe, and I was just two games from the title. Those games went by in a flurry of aces and winning volleys. And when I converted match point, I felt this surge of joy mixed with relief. I finally understood what it meant to be a worthy Grand Slam champ. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought or said, I knew in my own mind that this was the moment when I truly arrived. Up to then, I had known I could play great matches and win tournaments, even the odd major when everything else fell into place. But this match wasn’t about merely playing well, it was about legitimizing my character as a champion.
I’d emerged from the crucible of anxiety and proved my worth. The big difference between this fina
l and the ones that came before it was that on this occasion, I was fully aware of what was at stake. I set a pattern that day. In the future, I would take that feeling—that sense of acute anxiety melting away into total focus and a great sense of liberation when a match finally started—into every critical match I would play.
My win at Wimbledon in 1993 was really the beginning of my career as a dominant champion, although an incident in the press conference underscored how green I still was, emotionally. The late Princess Diana had watched me beat Jim, and she had clearly been in my corner as a fan. When the British tabloids pointed this out and asked for my reaction, I flippantly replied, “Maybe she has a crush on me.” Some of the people there laughed—somewhat nervously. The incident is better forgotten.
There is no one way to greatness, I’ve always realized that. Take my rival in history, Roger Federer. He went sixteen Grand Slams without reaching a quarterfinal, a mind-blowing statistic given what he has since accomplished. But in my case, I shudder to think what it might have meant for my future to lose that match to Jim. It was the final piece of my champion’s puzzle. I had come to grips with the Gift, and had learned to deal with the expectations and challenges created by having it. In Tim Gullikson, I had a coach who truly understood my game and personality, who knew what I needed, and could be a friend. He had been holding his breath, hoping I could close out my inner battle. Did I really want to be a champion? Did I really have a champion’s heart, and mind, and will?
After Wimbledon, Tim exhaled.
My tennis mission was redefined by that Wimbledon title. The new mandate called for me to win a boatload of matches to prove I was a dominant champion. The challenge would be staying in close touch with the Gift. I would lose plenty of tennis matches in the future, I knew that. How could you not, playing one-hundred-plus matches a year against a staggering array of individuals and styles of game?
