SEPTEMBER 2007

Three great stars of our era were impassive and almost expressionless on court:  Borg, Lendl and Sampras. Yet time and again, we were stunned by poignant examples of Pete’s emotion.

When his coach Tim Gullikson was dying; when, on the verge of collapse, he clinched the Davis Cup in Moscow; when he was upchucking at the U.S. Open; and upon his retirement when he spoke to the Ashe Stadium crowd. 

Once again, when he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in July, Sampras showed incredible feeling as he struggled through his (not-a-dry-eye-in-the-house) acceptance speech, weeping again and again.

    “I don’t know how or why I picked up a racket at seven, but I did and it felt natural,” said Sampras, who was joined by fellow inductees Spaniard Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, photography pioneer  Russ Adams and Swede Sven Davidson. “But my dad recognized my talent and he got me involved, and that’s where my love affair with the sport began.”

“My dad was a provider. My mom was the nurturer,” he added.  “ From my mom, that’s where I got my determination and my competitiveness, my drive.  Those are virtues I inherited somewhere deep  [from] under my mom’s thoughts.

Sampras recalled his breakthrough Grand Slam in ‘90, when he topped rival Agassi.  Sampras was just 19.

“To tell the truth, I was not ready for all that came with it [and] the better part of two years went by [when] it was kind of a fog. The man who helped me through was coach Tim Gullikson.  Tim was tough.  He had a no-nonsense, blue-collar approach and our personalities couldn’t have been more different.  I was inward.  He was the life of the party.  But it was Tim who instilled in me a work ethic I never had.  My talent got me to a certain level, but Tim pushed me hard and to practice with a purpose. He was the one who got me over the hump at a tournament where I did pretty well — Wimbledon.”

“The truth is for the first few years I hated grass-court tennis, but Tim changed my attitude,” Sampras added.  “ He made a few changes technically.  It was Tim, his mental [approach] and his work ethic, that got me to be the best player in the world...When Tim was diagnose with cancer in early ‘95, he was no longer able to travel.  One of his last appearances [was when] he attended the Davis Cup final [in Moscow].  After our victory, the team was packed with the usual people . There was a lot going on, but I glanced over and our eyes met like there was no one else in the room. We were both thinking we ought to be here alone together to savor this. In a way, I guess we were. That expression in Tim’s eyes remains with me to this day. I was with him, and he with me to the end.”

    Sampras also recalled how a back injury in ‘99 was a blessing. “That’s when I met my wife, [actress Bridgette Wilson-Sampras]...She was involved with a very successful career, but she put everything aside. In the two hardest years of my career, she became my rock and sounding board. I was struggling with issues I’d never faced.  But Bridgette kept me together with her empathy and compassion, her selflessness in life. She had to live with me at a time when it couldn’t have been fun. Yet her unwavering faith kept me strong when I was losing faith in myself.”

Pete then concluded: “I’m a tennis player — nothing more, nothing less.  That’s more than enough for me.  It always has been.”

 

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