Thirty years ago, a 19-year-old Pete Sampras shook the foundation of men’s tennis and became the youngest men’s singles champion in US Open history.
If you weren’t there, or don’t remember, not to worry—Hall of Fame journalist Steve Flink has you covered. Flink’s new book, "Pete Sampras: Greatness Revisited," was released on Sept. 1 to honor the achievements of one of the greatest male players to ever grace the Grand Slam stage.
Flink has covered tennis full-time since 1974 and has been present at more than 120 Grand Slam tournaments, including the 1990 US Open, where Sampras mowed down Thomas Muster, Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe before polishing off Andre Agassi with a dominant performance in the final to win his first of 14 major singles titles.
“Nobody was thinking of him winning the title,” Flink told USOpen.org of that momentous title run by the shy, sinewy kid with Greek roots and a California tan. “He said to me for the book that he would have been happy with Round of 16 or quarters. He was hoping for the second week and a decent showing. The last thing he thought about was winning the tournament. And, frankly, nobody else was really talking about him as even a really serious outside candidate—it was a longshot.”
One of the many strengths of "Greatness Revisited" is Flink’s ability to offer the reader a glimpse into the personality and perspectives of a man who has largely managed to avoid the public eye since he retired from the sport in 2003.
Flink, who expresses an immense respect for the way Sampras comported himself over the course of his legendary career (and even dedicates a separate section of the book to Sampras’ sportsmanship), knows his game and personality on an intimate level.
“There just was a kind of mutual respect that we shared that continues to this day, so I was able to comfortably go to him when I was getting ready to do this book and get his assurances that he would cooperate with me and talk to me,” Flink said. “He was terrific with me through the process, because I needed more hours than I thought I would initially, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’m enjoying the reminiscing,’ and he would always make himself available.”
Flip through the pages and experience a chronological rundown of the dominance that Sampras exerted over his peers, particularly at Wimbledon, where he made Centre Court his annual proving ground. Sampras also shares his views on critical moments in his career, such as his relationship with his former coach Tim Gullickson, who would eventually pass away from cancer in 1996, and his rivalries with Agassi, Jim Courier, Goran Ivanisevic and Michael Chang. There’s also a section of the book in which Flink calls upon many tennis luminaries to imagine what would happen if Sampras were to face Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
READ MORE: Open Questions with Watson: Did Pete Sampras have the best serve-and-volley game?
“I think what I learned was they all seemed to feel the way I did,” Flink said. “There was not one of them that said, 'No, I’m sorry, Pete was a great player, but he couldn’t stay with these guys.’ The debate was only about how he would match up against each of them, and the surface. And I loved having Pete weigh in himself about it.”
Among the many stars of tennis that Flink interviewed for "Greatness Revisited" are Martina Navratilova, Ivanisevic, Chang, Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Paul Annacone, Mary Carillo and Courier—and the list doesn’t stop there.
Readers will gain great insight into what made Sampras a unique champion and how he was viewed by those who went about the difficult task of trying to defeat him. Sampras never lost a Wimbledon final and rarely did he give anything but a masterful effort in Grand Slam finals. Only four times did he lose in the final round of a major.
Sampras’ quests didn’t only take place on the Grand Slam stage, however. He was hell-bent on breaking Jimmy Connors’ record of five consecutive year-end No.1 rankings in 1998 and traveled around the world chasing that record as the season wound down. It’s an achievement that took everything out of a player who was known for leaving everything on the court, and it still stands today.
We know Sampras as the smooth-serving, ultra-talented and unruffled champion, but there’s another side to him. There’s also Sampras, the driven, singularly focused competitor.
One shining example of Sampras as competitive guru was his 1996 USOpen quarterfinal against Alex Corretja. Sampras vomited on the court during a fifth-set tiebreak and hurried back to the service line to avoid a time violation. He would press on, saving a match point to win that incredible battle and later claim his third of five career US Open titles. Sampras is one of just seven players to have ever won a US Open singles title after saving a match point in the tournament.
It’s hard to imagine that type of Houdini act happening in 2020’s crowdless setting at the Open, but Sampras was a man whose limitless fight could be counted on, regardless of the situation.
“That crowd was going nuts and getting behind me,” Sampras says in the book. “They could see I was suffering. They could see I was fighting my ass off to try to win this match. I was dead.”
That unique Sampras moment was one of a handful of compelling moments in which the typically stoic American let the public see just how much he was hurting on a tennis court. As he tells Flink in his book, Sampras liked to keep his cards close to his vest, but there were times in his career that this became impossible and the walls came down, like in 1995, when he broke down in tears of grief on court while facing Courier in the Australian Open quarterfinals.
Sampras began the night hoping he could keep everything inside, but the raw emotions of the health problems his coach Tim Gullickson was facing at the time (detailed explicitly in the book) caused him to break down.
It’s one of the most memorable moments in Australian Open history and, true to form, Sampras won the title at the end of the week.
As we look back at Sampras’ voluminous body of work nearly two decades since he retired, we can cherish him more than ever, especially now that we know that America’s domination of men’s tennis did not come as easily as the statistics of the previous decades may have led many to believe. True greatness, as we saw in Sampras, is something that can only be created by magical athletes who commit every ounce of their existence to the fulfillment of their dreams.
Thirty years have passed since Sampras first captivated New York and took his place at the Grand Slam podium. It was remarkable to witness at the time, but even more enriching was to witness him stay at the top of the mountain for the decade that would follow, and go out a winner at his final Open in 2002.
Like the rest of American tennis fans, Flink was there watching, observing the moving spectacle. Long after we exited the stadium or shut off our televisions, he was still there, pen in hand, digging deeper into the psyche of a champion who redefined men’s tennis for America and the world.
