Tennis 1998: Sampras makes history, Davenport emerges
Posted: Tues December 22, 1998 at 11:08 p.m. EST
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." -- King Henry VI,
King Henry VI. by William Shakespeare, Part III Act III, Scene
I.
JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (Ticker) -- At the start of 1998, that
uneasy head appeared to belong to Pete Sampras, whose poor start
put his No. 1 crown in jeopardy, while Martina Hingis' victory
at the Australian Open looked to give the Swiss teen a firm
grasp on women's tennis.
However, by the end of the year it was Hingis who had
surrendered her No. 1 spot to Lindsay Davenport while Sampras
held off numerous challengers to remain on top for a record
sixth straight campaign in an exciting tennis season.
Sampras failed to win a significant tournament until claiming
his fifth Wimbledon title in July. Meanwhile, Petr Korda, at
the advancing tennis age of 29, won his first career grand slam
title at the Australian Open, beating Marcelo Rios in the final.
Rios had a breakout year in 1998, leading the ATP Tour with
seven titles, and enjoyed brief reigns as the No. 1 player on
two separate occasions. He earned three Super 9 titles but won
just one match as the top-ranked player.
Still, his emergence was one of the big stories of the year,
despite being named as the most hated man in tennis by Sports
Illustrated. Although the 22-year-old Chilean shook off his
reputation as a tanker of matches, he held fast to his surly,
rude ways, even firing Larry Stefanki, the coach many credited
with helping the left-hander realize his potential.
The Spaniards continued to dominate the claycourt season as
Carlos Moya won his first grand slam at the French Open, beating
older countryman Alex Corretja in the title match. But "The
Armada" showed it is multi-dimensional by staging a rematch in
the final of the ATP Tour Championship in Hannover, Germany, won
by Corretja.
During the dog days of summer, Rios stumbled on the American
hardcourts while Patrick Rafter turned up the heat. The popular
Aussie won 23 of 24 matches en route to four tournament wins,
including his second U.S. Open title, to start his pursuit of
the No. 1 spot. But the unforgiving surface took a toll on
Rafter's body and he was forced to cut his season short.
After losing to Rafter in the semifinals of the U.S. Open,
Sampras began to chase down as many points as possible in Europe
and finally clinched the No. 1 ranking for the year in the last
week of the season, breaking Jimmy Connors' mark for consecutive
seasons on top.
"The turning point this year was Wimbledon," Sampras said. "When
I won I thought I still had a good chance to be No. 1 at the end
of the year. The U.S. Open was not so good for me, but when I
look at it now, I think it was worth the sacrifice. It is a
record which will probably never get broken.
"I think in the past couple of years people have started to
appreciate what I did, but it will probably be more appreciated
when I have retired. As older as I get, I want to appreciate
these good things."
Sampras will set his sights on the next attainable milestone,
Roy Emerson's record of 12 grand slam titles. He can match the
mark in January at the Australian Open and break it by winning
his first French Open. In May, he could surpass Ivan Lendl's
mark of 270 total weeks at the top spot.
Davenport's rise to the top was less expected. A steady but
unspectacular performer, the 22-year-old Davenport often was
overlooked in favor of her younger and splashier competitors.
This year, Davenport had worked hard to shed 30 pounds and
exhibit the killer instinct that came naturally to the young
upstarts. But her ascent did not begin until Hingis' growing
pains set in.
The 18-year-old Hingis won 12 of 17 tournaments in 1997 and
started this year showing the same form, winning her second
straight Australian Open and three other titles. Many experts
have lauded Hingis for her mature style, but for most of the
year, it was her teen angst seen most often.
Hingis dated Spanish player Julian Alonso, took bathroom breaks
and injury timeouts to distract winning foes and discounted
losses by saying she had not tried hard, so they did not count.
The Swiss miss went into a five-month funk without a tournament
victory, a slump that continued as Davenport captured her first
grand slam title by beating her at the U.S. Open. Three weeks
later, Davenport became the first American-born woman to hold
the No. 1 ranking since Chris Evert in 1981.
"For some reason, I was able to break through and play really
great tennis and make my dream come true," said Davenport, who
lost the year-ending Chase Championships final to Hingis but
finished with a career-high six titles. "To end the year No. 1
is unbelievable, but to look back and see that I won the U.S.
Open is unbelievable. It's going to be hard to duplicate next
year."
Although she wound up second-best, Hingis did make history by
winning a doubles Grand Slam -- all major doubles titles in one
year. It was a feat that eluded Jacco Eltingh, who won the
first three legs of the Grand Slam but pulled out of the U.S.
Open to attend the birth of his son in the Netherlands. He
retired after winning the ATP Tour World Doubles Championship at
the end of the year with long-time partner Paul Haarhuis.
The 1998 season could have been called "Year of the Comeback" as
numerous players rebounded from illness, mourning and a general
malaise.
Andre Agassi jump-started his career, winning 68 matches after
going just 12-12 in 1997. Last December, he dropped out of the
top 100 but pushed his pride aside to play in two challenger
events -- the tennis equivalent of the minor leagues -- almost
unheard of for a player that has four grand slams and a No. 1
ranking on his resume.
That Agassi won five titles this year and finished at No. 6 is
not surprising; that a player of his talent would allow himself
to fall so low is alarming. Agassi, who lost in the first and
second rounds at the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively,
has made performing better at the grand slams his top priority
in 1999.
Steffi Graf, a winner of 20 grand slams and owner of the No. 1
ranking for the longest time in history, missed most of 1997
after undergoing season-ending knee surgery in June. Graf
delayed her return again and again as she recuperated from one
injury only to have another part of her 29-year-old body break
down. She even contemplated retirement.
Despite playing at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, Graf did
not rise to her high standards until the end of the year, when
she won two straight tournaments and 12 consecutive matches. Her
three-set quarterfinal duel against Monica Seles at the Chase
Championships in December was perhaps the match of the year.
Seles missed the first part of the season to be at her father's
death bed. Just two weeks after Karolj died of cancer, Seles
captivated the tennis world by advancing to the French Open
final before losing to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.
Sanchez-Vicario also was on the comeback trail in 1998. She had
been held without a title the previous year, reaching just one
final. The presence of the new girls on the block threatened to
push her aside, but the spunky Spaniard proved that she would
not go quietly into that good night ,as she won her third French
Open.
In general, the older players on the women's tour had something
of a renaissance. Jana Novotna finally shed the choker label
and the best female player never to have won a Grand Slam.
Hingis was the only member of the teen team to reach a Grand
Slam final as Conchita Martinez was runner-up at the Australian
Open and 31-year-old Natalie Tauziat reached the Wimbledon
championship.
If the older generation showed it was not quite ready for the
retirement home, some of the young guns failed to build on the
promise of 1997.
Venus Williams won her first three singles titles, including the
prestigious Lipton Championships. In addition, she reached the
quarterfinals or better in all four grand slams and teamed with
Justin Gimelstob to win two of the four mixed doubles majors.
Her younger sister Serena claimed the other two with Max Mirnyi
to form a Williams Grand Slam.
Despite succumbing to injuries at the end of the year, Venus
finished 1998 as the fifth-ranked player in the world.
Serena made headlines early in the year when she became the
fastest player in WTA Tour history to beat five players ranked
in the top 10. She needed just 16 matches to achieve the mark
and provided further excitement by playing her sister in the
second round of the Australian Open.
For a better part of the summer, Patty Schnyder was the best
player out of Switzerland. She claimed five titles and scored
her biggest upset at the U.S. Open when she ousted Graf easily
in the fourth round.
Anna Kournikova concluded the season with more web sites
dedicated to her blond-haired beauty than tournament wins. She
was impressive early in the year, knocking off four seeded
players to reach her first career WTA Tour final at the Lipton
Championships, but went into a slide in the season's final four
months.
Off the court, the 17-year-old continued to cavort with hockey
star Sergei Fedorov, who is 28. The Russian pair dumped IMG as
their management to go with Advantage International. Kournikova
was not happy with the way she was portrayed in a multitude of
publications, including Sports Illustrated, Details, Conde Nast,
and Rolling Stone. Although she is the most marketable
commodity on the women's tour, she has not signed any non-sports
endorsements.
Croatian Mirjana Lucic won her second title in her homeland and
a doubles grand slam with Hingis in Australia, but often was
unfocused on the court. The cause of her worries emerged in
September when she revealed her father's physical and emotional
abuse.
Teen stars were not exclusive to the women's tour this year. At
16 years, 10 months, Lleyton Hewitt became the lowest-ranked
player to win an ATP event, capturing the Australian Men's
Hardcourt Championship in January.
Marat Safin, 18, went from embarrassed rookie against Agassi to
within one set from helping Russia oust the United States from
the Davis Cup in the first round. He later surprised Agassi,
defending champion Gustavo Kuerten and Daniel Vacek at the
French Open before falling in five sets to Cedric Pioline. Safin
repeated the feat at U.S. Open two weeks after reaching his
first ATP Tour semifinal on Long Island.
Xavier Malisse, an 18-year-old from Belgium, almost defeated
Sampras in Philadelphia in February and appeared in his first
ATP Tour final in Mexico City nine months later.
Away from the competition and in the board rooms, tennis was
very busy. Bart McGwire became CEO of the women's tour, Regency
Enterprises acquired the opportunity to sell the television
rights to the WTA Tour. The ATP Tour announced its plans to
change its rankings system to a straight race for points,
streamline its calendar and suggested no-advantage scoring and
final sets played as tiebreakers. The men's tour experimented
with courtside coaching but will not pursue it further in 1999.
The new year expects to be an exciting one as Sampras reserves
his place as the best men's player ever, Hingis aims to reclaim
what she feels is rightly hers and the players of the future
continue to battle the players of the past on an international
stage.
© 1998 Sportsticker Enterprises, LP
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