God of Big Things

"The higher you soar the smaller you appear to those who cannot fly." - Friedrich Nietzsche

THE man called Joker was right. Pete Sampras is history. Greg Rusedski was right. Pete Sampras is done. The Canadian-born Briton was right. Pete Sampras is slow. Rusedski was on the mark. Pete Sampras is old, a father to be soon.

He was, after all, giving voice to a belief that he shared with a lot of other players on the tour, an opinion that many a critic has brought to print, has aired on television.

They were all right. As a Grand Slam champion, Pete Sampras is history.

Is this the same Pete Sampras who, last fortnight, at age 31 and in front of a passionate crowd at the National Tennis Center in New York beat one of the all-time greats of the game - Andre Agassi - in the US Open final and then climbed into the stands to share an intimate moment with his heavily pregnant wife Bridgette Wilson Sampras?

Of course, it is. Yet, Greg Rusedski and all the others who swore that such an event would never happen again in Sampras's career were all right.

They were right because they said what seemed logical from their point of view. They were right because, they judged within the ambit of their own knowledge and experience. They were right because, given their limitations, they could not have said anything different.

That the Rusedski point of view is pedestrian is besides the point. That he - and all the others who sought to write off the greatest tennis player that ever lived - knows nothing about surpassing genius is hardly relevant.

What is relevant is this: it takes a touch of greatness to peek into the soul of the sort of greatness symbolised by Sampras and see it for what it is, see it for what it is capable of, see it for its timeless quality and transcendental brilliance. Average men with average thought patterns like Rusedski's will never enjoy that privilege.

Then again, to hell with Rusdeski and his ilk. We are not here to bury them. We are here to praise one of the greatest athletes in the history of sport, to celebrate one of the greatest moments of his remarkable career, to marvel at a revival that is nothing short of the epic.

Who would have believed this was possible? Who - other than the great man himself - would have thought that an ageing legend who had lost to George No Name (Bastl) in the second round at Wimbledon last June and then sat slumped in his chair staring at the turf for a long, long time would win a fifth U.S.Open title 12 years after his first as a 19-year-old?

During the fourth and fifth sets of that match, Sampras pulled out a note written by his wife to inspire him and read it again and again. "My husband, 7 time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras," began the note. It was a touching moment but it failed to save Sampras ignominy on that day.

Long years spent in the trenches of sportswriting provide a person with an armour of impassivity. While you readily describe an event with passion and hold a mirror to the emotions played out on a sports field, you seldom let the events shake you up. You feel, yet you don't feel. You are moved, yet you are not moved.

In my career, that afternoon at Wimbledon was an exception. I simply could not believe something like that could have happened to Sampras, that the lord and master of lawn tennis could be so humbled by a man who made the main draw as a lucky loser after being eliminated in the qualifying rounds. Later that evening, in the press mini bus that drove us back to Central London, an Italian journalist said to me: "I guess this is it. Pete will never come back here again. It's all over."

I flashed a wan smile and said to myself, "Maybe he is right." Yet, as the hauntingly poignant image of the great man sitting, shoulders slumped, on the No.2 court played itself out again and again in my mind, I was hoping against all hope that the great man would somehow author a miracle.

But, then, truth to tell, for all the elements of the unexpected contained in the dramatic events of the second week at Flushing Meadows, Grand Slam title No.14 for Pete Sampras was no miracle. It was just that the great man finally overcame the biggest slump of his career, and did so against all odds.

It would have been a miracle if a lesser man had done what Sampras did, go without a single title for more than two years and then beat players of the calibre of Tommy Haas, Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi to win the U.S.Open.

But Sampras needs no miracles to win. He just needs about 80 per cent of his game. Yes, 80 per cent. Not even 100 per cent.

Having watched him from the time he beat a resurgent John McEnroe in the semifinals and then Andre Agassi in the final to win his first Grand Slam title in New York in 1990, having watched him win seven Wimbledon titles and two Australian Open titles, one can say this much with conviction: Sampras at 80 per cent will beat Andre Agassi at 100 per cent in five sets on a fast court. And he only needs to be at 70 per cent to beat any of the other active players in the game!

And what happens when Sampras plays at 100 per cent? As Agassi, his greatest rival, said after losing the 1999 Wimbledon final in straight sets, Pete walks on water.

A majority of tennis critics and a vast majority of fans have a natural tendency to favour matches of intense drama. Five set epics stay in the mind longer. The Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe classic of 1980 at Wimbledon, the Goran Ivanisevic-Pat Rafter thriller last year... these are the kind of matches that appeal to many.

But, in my mind, there is no greater match than the one in which Sampras outclassed an inspired Agassi in the 1999 Wimbledon final. From the time he was challenged on serve (down 0-40) midway in the first set to the time that he eased on the pedal just that bit late in the third set, Sampras put on an exhibition of tennis that would have been impossible even to dream of, if it had not actually been enacted in front of our eyes.

As the great man probed the very limits of athletic and artistic excellence, you sat in awe, often pinching yourself, and still wondering if it was a dream from which you'd soon wake up.

"Can anyone really play tennis like this" asked a French tennis writer, eyes wide, in the press box.

Well, Pete Sampras can. Pete Sampras did. And it was precisely because of that it was hard to digest the events of the last two seasons when the great man huffed and puffed to defeats against mere mortals.

Looking back, for a couple of years, Sampras has had a problem. After winning a record 13 Grand Slam titles, after winning a record seven Wimbledon titles, after finishing No.1 for a record six years, there was no new peak to scale, no one to beat, nothing to prove, no challenge to meet.

What does a mountaineer do after conquering the Everest? Everything else begins to look meaningless, pedestrian, unworthy of great effort.

And what does a tennis champion do after becoming the winningest Grand Slam champion of all time, after spending more weeks at No.1 than anyone else in history, after having dominated the spiritual home of tennis - Wimbledon - like no other player?

Maybe simply ease his foot off the pedal, find the woman of his dreams to marry, chill out a bit and soak up life outside the cauldron of tennis.

Sampras did just that. But, then, not much later, he wasn't the Sampras we knew anymore on a tennis court. Tom Who, Dick What and Harry Who's That started stepping on the court believing they can beat the great man. And many of them did too as Sampras went without a title in 33 tournaments over 26 months.

In Grand Slam after Grand Slam, as he said that he still felt he had another major or two left in him - after losing to lesser men - few were willing to believe him. It looked like the great man was chasing rainbows.

But like Muhammad Ali in another era, through all the traumatic events in the twilight of his career, Sampras continued to believe in himself, sure in his mind that he can recreate the magic of the past at least one more time.

After making the quarterfinals in New York, beating Haas, Sampras was asked for his reaction to Rusedski's comments following their third round match. And the great man said, "The things which Greg says don't faze me. I know what I can do out there. I don't have to prove people wrong. That's not why I am playing. I am playing to challenge myself and see if I can do it again."

That, dear readers, is the one true sign of surpassing greatness - how successfully you can challenge yourself when all other challenges have been met and mastered.

Ernest Hemingway trying to write a book that is even better than The Old Man and the Sea, the painter Vincent Van Gogh trying to come up with a work of art that can surpass the Sunflowers... the self-surpassing process is the ultimate yardstick of greatness.

This is a business that is bloody tough for an athlete with a limited shelf life. For, by the time you have begun to challenge yourself - after having overcome every other challenge - your legs are weary, your motivation runs low and the sportsman's biggest enemy, Time, is ready to take its pound of flesh, so to say.

Then, suddenly, you are back in the trenches again, as Sampras was. In the strange business of life, just when you think you have nothing to prove, it turns out there is everything to prove, to yourself more than others.

And, at New York on that Sunday, the greatest tennis player that ever lived did prove a point - to himself. He proved that he can challenge himself and come out on top. Surely, it was his greatest victory. For, on that day, Pete Sampras beat Pete Sampras. And, to Pete Sampras now, that is the only player worth challenging, and beating !

Trashing Tendulkar isn't cricket

Many sportslovers have lost the capacity to look at the larger picture and understand events in a historical perspective, writes Nirmal Shekar

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MANY a connoisseur of cricket may have come to believe, on Sunday, that the unthinkable has happened when Sachin Tendulkar was booed all the way back to the pavilion at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai by sections of the crowd. But, in truth, it was unimaginable only because we may have failed to scratch the surface of our fast-evolving cricketing culture, only because we have probably failed to see the fast-emerging darkness in the very soul of a once-great culture, which is dumbing down rather alarmingly.

Trashing Tendulkar for an uncharacteristic failure is much like attempting to dismantle the Taj because one of its walls has developed a minor crack over time. It is simply not done. And the shocking incident in Mumbai says more about where we — as a nation of cricket-obsessed people — are headed than about Tendulkar's own travails in the twilight of an unmatched career.

In the fullness of time, we will know whether the great man's nightmare-run with the bat is a temporary slump in form or, perhaps, the beginning of a much more serious career crisis. But, right now, this issue is less relevant than the fact that people who may have never had the good fortune to let their spirits soar to exalted levels with each Tendulkar symphony chose to greet his first innings departure with catcalls and booes to leave a scar on the not-so-pretty face of the game in India.

If the poignancy of that dark moment on Sunday afternoon went way beyond sport, then it was also a quick reminder that as sportslovers quite a few of us have now become ``here and now'' people in the worst possible connotation that term can take on.

For, if the ones that booed the little maestro had had the good sense to look beyond the man's momentary struggles at the crease to the grand monument he has left behind, his dismissal might have brought a sort of heaviness to their hearts and tied up their tongues in sheer disbelief.

Then again, for many sportslovers, that is precisely the problem today — they have lost the capacity to appreciate history, to look at the larger picture, to go beyond the most recent stimuli and understand events in a historical perspective.

Worshippers of instant celebrity

Many of us, thanks to the influences of the age in which we live, have become worshippers of instant celebrity. The non-stop dross coming at us from all directions has forced us to wilfully conclude that today's success is the greatest success ever achieved, that today's seat-edge thriller is the greatest game ever played, that today's superstar is the greatest megastar of all times.

When our sporting culture has suffered this sort of corruption, when its essential core has been eroded by these giant new waves, it is hardly surprising that a great icon such as Tendulkar should himself become a victim in his own backyard.

The point is, Tendulkar never promised any of us a masterly century in every innings that he might get to play. We were the ones who set that impossible goal for the little man. That he has failed to meet that unrealistic goal is no sheen off his greatness; it merely throws light on our own foolishness.

At no point in his remarkable career did Tendulkar tell us that he was immortal; we turned him into a sort of superhuman phenomenon — where none exists in the known world — because we were perhaps ashamed of our own all too human limitations and wanted someone not-quite-like-us to look up to.

Never in the last 16 years that he has been dominating our sporting consciousness has Tendulkar ever hinted that he was invincible; we turned him into an invincible champion because we felt the need to bolster our own sense of everyday reality with something supernatural.

Harsh reality

The harsh reality of the capricious business of sport is this: every champion that has ever drawn breath, every champion as yet unborn, can be sure of one thing — some day, he will fail. The world of sport is yet to toast a truly invincible athlete.

But, then, in dealing with Tendulkar's failure — or any issue of this sort — it is very easy to find the answer we want; much, much more difficult to find the answer that matches the truth.

Of course, as passionate followers of the game, we are entitled to our own opinions. If some of us believe that the great man may not deserve a place in the team if he continues to fail, that's fair enough. Nobody owns a place in the Indian cricket team — not even Tendulkar.

But what is not fair — and will never be — is to stoop down to the sort of mindless pettiness that triggered the Mumbai booing on Sunday.

Final drama provides special ending

It will be called the greatest final ever. It was certainly the longest at 4 hours 48 minutes, and that is without the two rain delays.

On occasions, Nadal and Federer could only shake their heads and marvel at the quality of their opponent's shots. They were spectators, like the rest of us, to a masterclass in tennis. On other occasions, shots that would have beaten any other player were returned as winners.

Not only was the tennis of the highest quality, it was of the nerve-wracking variety as well: Federer went down two sets to love, he saved two Championship points, Nadal lost two tie-breakers, the fifth set was still going as it was getting darker, the players were tired. It was all too much.

When the dust settled, Nadal was the new champion, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7, and no one who saw this unforgettable match could say he didn’t deserve it.

All the talk had been about Federer breaking Bjorn Borg's record of five consecutive Wimbledon titles, it was the second seed who upstaged Borg, by becoming the first player to win back-to-back at the French Open and Wimbledon.

Wimbledon has a new king. Rafael Nadal dethroned Roger Federer after a five-year reign by winning the longest-ever Wimbledon men's final.

The consistently heartstopping 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7 classic began at 2.35pm and thanks to a couple of breaks for rain (surely necessary for the spectators to catch their breath), it ended at 9.15pm with the 22-year-old from Mallorca dropping to the ground with his arms outstretched in celebration.

Watching the four hours and 48 minutes on-court action, from the vantage point of the royal box, was Centre Court legend Bjorn Borg. Nadal had matched the Swede's fantastic feat of winning the Grand Slams of Roland Garros and Wimbledon back-to-back and had also prevented Federer surpassing the five titles in a row he collected between 1976 and 1980.

Conditions for the latest duel between tennis's two finest players could not have been more demanding. The rain, which delayed the start for 27 minutes, eventually cleared but the chill, gusting wind which accompanied it persisted throughout the match, blowing winning shots off course and making life even more difficult for the two competitors. That they coped so well spoke volumes for their skill and adaptability.

With the five-time champion looking less than his authoritative best, it was Nadal who struck the first heavy blow, capitalising on successive Federer errors to break for a 2-1 lead.

From the start Nadal concentrated his battering-ram attack on the Federer backhand, aiming every serve and looping forehand in that direction and it kept the champion in an unaccustomed position - on the back foot. Federer prospered more when he switched to net-rushing but he could not block Nadal's inexorable advance towards the first set.

The Spaniard managed to fight off a break point to stay 3-1 ahead and he needed to avert two more as he served for the set, which he clinched on his third set point after 48 minutes, courtesy of another brace of ground stroke errors from Federer.

It was the first set Federer had dropped since the final of the French Open, when he was routed by the same Nadal.

Federer's counter-attack was immediate and it rushed him into a three-game lead which he extended to an apparently commanding 4-1 with his sixth and seventh aces, only for the irrepressible Nadal to bounce back with some thrilling, all-action stuff.

To Federer's visible anger, his serve was broken as a stretched volley flew out of play and Nadal pulled level at 4-4 as Federer squandered yet another break point.

Now Nadal was in full, thrilling flow, breaking Federer again to lead 5-4 with another huge forehand and celebrating with pumped fists. As he was serving for the second set, Nadal received a warning from umpire Pascal Maria of France for taking too long between serves.

Clearly unsettled by the timing of that censure, the Spaniard permitted Federer another break point on a wind-caused error, but in typical fashion dug deep and clinched the set when Federer once more mistimed a backhand into the netting. So, having swept five games, Nadal was in the driving set, two sets ahead.

Nadal's authority suffered a scare in the third game of the third set when he slipped in making a sudden change of direction and called in the trainer to check on his right knee. No time-out was requested by Nadal, though his speed around court appeared to be affected for a while.

He was at full stretch in the next game, fighting off two Federer break points and, as dark clouds began to mass over Centre Court, the champion went flat out to recover a set and get back into the match. But four more break points went begging as Nadal held for 3-3 before wasting three break points of his own which would have put him 4-3 ahead and perfectly positioned to win.

Instead, with Federer leading 5-4, the expected downpour set in and play was held up for one hour 20 minutes. On the resumption it was Federer who dominated when a tie-break was needed to resolve the set, hammering four aces to take it by seven points to five.

The fourth set did not contain a single break point for either man and when the second tie-break of the match arrived it was a sensation, with Nadal first leading by five points to two and then reaching, and missing, two Championship points before Federer levelled at two sets all when a Nadal backhand error left him the winner by 10 points to eight.

Another downpour drove the players off court for half an hour with the score at 2-2 in the final set and when they returned the light was fading. But the spirit of both finalists burned bright as they hammered the ball at each other just as eagerly as they had done when this marathon first began.

At 3-4 Nadal saved a break point which would have left Federer serving for the title. At 6-6 Federer saved a couple of break points. Finally, in the gloom, the Spaniard broke to lead 8-7 when Federer struck a forehand too long.

So Nadal served for the match again, getting to his third Championship point only for Federer to hit an incredible backhand service return. Deuce once again, but Nadal moved to his fourth match point with a big serve and, with the crowd going wild, Federer finally cracked, dumping a forehand in the net.

It was late, very late, but not too late for the coronation of a new king to begin.

Yet it is to the men's singles final that we must return, and a final comment from the two protagonists. "In tennis, unfortunately there has to be winners and losers, there’s no draws," Federer said. "But I really had to push hard to come back. And I wasn't able to break him in the last three sets, but still I pushed him right to the edge. It's probably my hardest loss, by far. I mean, it's not much harder than this right now."

"I just say, 'Good tournament. Sorry'," is how Nadal relayed his thoughts to Federer after the match. "Because I know how tough is lose a final like this. This is tougher than last year, and last year I was very disappointing in the end. So he is a great champion, no? His attitude always is positive when he lose, when he win. Always accept the victories and the losses with the same humble for him."

Nadal eyes place in history

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer agree: Nadal’s crushing win over the world No. 1 at Roland Garros four weeks ago is more or less irrelevant as far as Sunday’s men’s final is concerned. Different court, different surface – different tournament histories.

At least, that is what they both say in public.

If Nadal felt his 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 semi-final defeat of unseeded German Rainer Schuettler was not quite up to the standard he displayed against Andy Murray in the quarters, he knows he will have to be at his absolute peak on Sunday if he is to secure a first Wimbledon title. He certainly has growing faith in his abilities on the green stuff – and not just because he won at Queen’s Club a few weeks ago.

“Having made three finals, I don't have to show anybody that I can play well here," Nadal said. "I get confidence from the clay court season and the US hard court season as well. I think I am a better player in general than last year. But for sure, winning or losing is an important difference. If I win on Sunday, my career is changing a little bit more, no?”

It would indeed, for Nadal is bidding to become the first man to do the Roland Garros-Wimbledon double since Bjorn Borg nearly three decades ago. Already on track to usurp the great Swede as the most successful clay court player of all time, Nadal is now bidding to pull off the trickiest feat in tennis: winning majors on clay and grass in the space of a month. If he manages it, his name might even start to enter more general discussions about all-time greats.

But, while Federer insists he knows what he has to do to succeed against Nadal on grass, the humble Spaniard was more circumspect when asked if he felt the same about the five-time champion.

“No, no. I’m only gonna try my best. Go on court, try to play my best tennis, try to get my rhythm, my intensity. If he plays better than me, he beats me, I’ll just congratulate him like every year.” But in no way should that be interpreted as a verbal capitulation.

“Last year I was very close. I hope on Sunday to be at the same level of performance – a little bit better – so I have my chances to win. For sure, if I win here probably it’s going to be one of the most important wins in my career, no? But I don't want to speak about a win. I only want to speak about how I have to play the final, I have to play my best tennis if I want chances to win this final. Later, if I am here on Sunday with the title, well, you can ask me what I feel.”

Nadal was also asked, if he did win on Sunday, whether he would consider himself confirmed as the best player in the world, regardless of the official rankings. “If I have the title on Sunday, on Monday I will continue be the No. 2,” he responded modestly, but the 22-year-old clearly has an eagle eye on the forthcoming US season already. “I’m gonna have more chances to be No.1 in the next months, that's true.”

As for those discussions about legends, the Majorcan again showed great respect for his rival. “I think for me [Federer] he’s the best of the history. I don’t know if he’s the best on grass because Sampras has seven, no? Federer has five – hopefully not six this year. So he has to win two more times to be at the same level as Sampras here on this surface. But in general I think he is the best,” Nadal concluded, putting the burden of expectation firmly onto his Swiss opponent.