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Grand Slammings Top-ranked Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf smashed all challengers at the Australian Open
Posted: Thursday January 13, 2000 02:27 PM By Sally Jenkins Issue date: February 7, 1994
In the men's final on Sunday, however, Pete Sampras and Todd Martin turned the event into a thoroughly Yank affair. Looking like a couple of Eagle Scout poster boys in their back-to-school haircuts, Sampras and Martin divided the vocal American crowd that visited Melbourne's Flinders Park. Cries of ''Come on, Pete!'' alternated with ''Come on, Todd!'' until finally a voice drifting down from the bleachers exhorted, ''Come on, both of you!'' In an absorbing and dead-even first set, the two players sent shots across the net like bottle rockets. Then Sampras pulled away from Martin as inexorably as he had from the rest of the men's field, taking the first Grand Slam title of 1994 by a score of 7-6, 6-4, 6-4. A little early to start talking about Sampras's sweeping the four Grand Slam tournaments this year? Probably. But it's not too early to whisper. Sampras has his eyes fixed on the record book, and he has often said he would like to be mentioned in the same breath with his hero Rod Laver, the last man to win the Australian, French, British and U.S. championships in a calendar year (1969). When asked how he could improve on a '93 season in which he won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and rose to No. 1, Sampras said, ''Maybe win them all.'' That didn't sound so audacious after his triumph Down Under. The only person in Melbourne more overwhelming than Sampras was women's champion Steffi Graf, whose 6-0, 6-2 victory over second-seeded Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in 57 minutes last Saturday was one of the shortest Australian finals in memory. Sánchez Vicario was no more than a convenient target for Graf's axlike strokes. Graf, who did not come close to losing a set in collecting her fourth straight Grand Slam crown and her 15th overall, was thrilled by her performance. ''When I play this way, I don't care about the score or the length [of the match] or whether it's the first round or the final,'' she said. ''It just feels wonderful.'' Graf was too pleased to reflect for long on the absence of former No. 1 Monica Seles, who's still inactive nine months after being stabbed by an attacker in Hamburg, Germany. But Graf admitted that she finds the game more interesting when she has a challenge. Without Seles or Jennifer Capriati, who has taken a sabbatical to finish high school, the women's draw seemed almost vacant. Until, that is, Graf met Lindsay Davenport, a 17-year-old Californian who checks in at 6'2". Davenport is an unselfconscious giggler who resembles Rosie O'Donnell more than Rosie Casals. On the court, though, she has the strokes of a serial killer. She upset sixth-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez en route to the quarterfinals, where she lost 6-3, 6-2 to Graf. No sooner had Graf dealt with Davenport than along came Date, who had upset third-seeded Conchita Martinez in the quarters. Date is an ambidextrous wonder who is far better than she showed in a 6-3, 6-3 loss to Graf. A resolute Japanese patriot who has had to be ordered by the Women's Tennis Association to learn English, Date cooked her own rice lunches in Melbourne and had acupuncture in her knees after every match. She rose to No. 7 in the rankings with her performance in Australia. While Davenport and Date preoccupied Graf for only so long, Sánchez Vicario could not preoccupy her at all; she won only 12 points in getting bageled in the first set. Unless Seles returns, Graf could repeat her 1988 Grand Slam. Indeed, she may be an even better player than she was five years ago. Sampras, meanwhile, played with such power and grace that the absence of Boris Becker, Andre Agassi and Michael Chang was all but forgotten. Becker was in Germany celebrating the birth of his first child. Agassi was in Las Vegas recovering from wrist surgery. Chang simply didn't want to play. Their presence wouldn't have mattered. The reticent Sampras says he likes to do his talking with his racket. Well, then, this was oratory. After surviving a five-set scare from an unknown Russian named Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the second round, Sampras noticeably improved with each match. An indication of the exquisite form he reached was his shockingly easy 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 semifinal defeat of two-time defending champion Jim Courier. Sampras has defeated Courier in six of their last seven meetings, leaving Courier at a loss as to what to do. ''Maybe break his leg on a changeover,'' Courier said. Martin, who was playing his first Grand Slam final, had no answers either. But there are signs that the 6'6". Martin could make life difficult for Sampras in the future. In 1993 Martin rose from No. 87 to No. 13, beating five Top 10 players and reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinals. ''I always believed in him,'' Sampras said. ''This doesn't surprise me at all.'' Martin, 23, is an example of the wealth of tennis talent that exists in the U.S. only a few years after it seemed that there was no one to replace John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. Martin's development can be credited principally to two U.S. Tennis Association coaches: Tom Gullikson, the Davis Cup captain, and José Higueras, who guided Chang and Courier to Grand Slam titles. Before Martin traveled to Australia, he spent two weeks working with Higueras and Gullikson in Palm Springs, Calif., where Higueras teaches. It has become common for U.S. players to gather during the off-season in Palm Springs for a mini training camp. During his recent stay there, Martin worked out with Courier, dined with him and took $30 from him on the golf course. He has also spent time working out -- and playing golf -- with Sampras, who is coached by Tim Gullikson, brother of Tom. And Martin is a good friend and practice partner of yet another rising American star, MaliVai Washington, who last week reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal before losing to Martin. There is no question the American players have been pushing one another to greater heights. In Melbourne, moreover, Sampras and Martin worked hard to present themselves as squeaky-clean boys, the image now preferred by most U.S. players. ''Give me a glass of milk and I'm happy,'' says Martin, who called himself simply ''an all-American kid'' as he accepted the runner-up trophy. Yet Sampras has suffered for his good comportment. He was labeled boring by the press after winning Wimbledon. Just before the Australian Open began, former champion John Newcombe blasted Sampras for being uncharismatic, to which Sampras replied, ''You won't see me cracking jokes because John Newcombe wants me to.'' Sampras is not only the most talented tennis player but also the nicest. He seems intent on proving that one need not be a boor to be a great player. ''I'm not going to apologize for trying to do this right,'' he said. Martin is no more exciting. The only thing charismatic about him is his big, all-court game, with a 120-mph serve, lashing groundstrokes and sprawling net coverage. With his imposing wingspan Martin swoops down on the net like a pterodactyl. But even his game attracted little attention until recently, because he's a late bloomer who spent two years studying linguistics at Northwestern while Sampras and Courier were hitting the tour. If the mannerly Martin has anything resembling a wild side, it's his passion for pocket billiards. Whenever he goes home to Lansing, Mich., he visits Pockets, a pool hall where he enters tournaments to see how he stacks up. ''I get more nervous in that than in playing tennis,'' he says. He needed the steadiest of nerves to reach the Australian final. Martin won seven of eight tiebreakers, including three in his 3-6, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 semifinal victory over Edberg. Martin's remarkable run ended, however, in the first set against Sampras, during which Martin could not break serve despite six chances. When Sampras won the tiebreaker, Martin's magic was gone. Sampras raced out to leads of 4-1 in the second set and 5-1 in the third before Martin, helped by Sampras errors, made each set respectable. Afterward the two Yank friends met at the net and embraced. ''It wasn't my day,'' Martin said. ''But for the past 13 days it felt like my day, so I was just glad to be around for those.'' Later Martin considered Sampras's chances of winning the Grand Slam. The toughest test will be on clay at the French Open, which Sampras has yet to win. ''Yeah, I think he can,'' Martin said. ''Unless this guy Martin gets in his way.'' Issue date: February 7,
1994
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