Quest to stay best
Sampras in 'wild' bid to retain No. 1 ranking
Posted: Thursday October 08, 1998 08:44 PM
| |
Pete Sampras currently is third in the Road to Hanover race, 379 points behind U.S. Open champion Patrick Rafter, who leads with 3,260 points AP |
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the battle to keep his No. 1 ranking for a record sixth year, Pete Sampras has turned to an unlikely source -- Boris Becker.
Sampras has been ranked No. 1 in the world for the last five years, a streak matched only by Jimmy Connors. He wants the record by himself.
When he failed to win his fifth U.S. Open crown last month, Sampras lost his chance at virtually clinching the year-end No. 1 title.
"That's why I'm here," he said Thursday in a telephone conversation from a hotel room in Basel, Switzerland. "If I had won the Open this year, this probably wouldn't have happened.
"Five weeks in Europe. That's a big commitment."
While the ranking is done by computer on a 52-week basis, it's easier to compare by using the ATP Tour's Road to Hanover points race. That's based on a calendar year, and by the time the season-ending ATP Tour World Championship in Hanover, Germany, is over, the two are identical.
Sampras currently is third in the Road to Hanover race, 379 points behind U.S. Open champion Patrick Rafter, who leads with 3,260 points. Chile's Marcelo Rios is second at 3,173.
Following Sampras (2,881) are Carlos Moya of Spain (2,819) and Andre Agassi (2,527).
While every player in the top 10 has a mathematical shot at finishing the year at No. 1, the winner almost certainly will come from the top five.
Sampras had planned on playing three tournaments before Hanover -- Lyon, France; Stuttgart, Germany; and Paris. When he realized he needed more points to retain his coveted No. 1 year-end ranking, he went in search of wild cards to two more tournaments -- Basel, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria.
Sampras found out that even the world's top-ranked player can't make last-minute plans. Neither could accommodate Sampras since it was too late to enter the normal way and both tournaments had already awarded all of their had wild cards.
Then luck stepped in -- twice.
Mark Philippoussis, the U.S. Open runner-up, pulled out of Basel with an injury. That spot in the tournament was taken by the next highest-ranked player on the entry list. And that was Switzerland's Marc Rosset, who just happened to have been given a wild card.
Sampras wasn't able to take advantage, losing in the opening round to South Africa's Wayne Ferreira.
But Rafter also was a first-round loser, so Sampras didn't fall further behind in the points race.
Then Sampras learned Boris Becker had received a wild card for Vienna, which begins on Monday.
"I contacted Boris to see if he was going to play. He's obviously not playing as much," Sampras said. "He said he would give it to me. Otherwise I would have left for home."
Sampras admitted he had never heard of a player giving up a wild card so that someone else could have it.
"Boris is not playing full-time and he knows what I'm trying to achieve this year," he said. "I figured he's not playing that much. He knows how much it means."
The race to No. 1 will be decided on the court. Besides Sampras, Rafter and Moya also are scheduled to play in Vienna.
At Lyon, Sampras will be in a field that includes Rafter and Rios.
Then all five of the top players will be at Stuttgart, Paris and Hanover.
"It pretty much might come down to Hanover," Sampras said. "But I have four more tournaments before then. I'm hoping to get my game back."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
| 
