|
Thursday, 7 June, 2007
The Changing of the Guard
By Chris Bowers, Wimbledon
In
many ways Federer is much like the man he succeeded at the All England
Club in 2001. Federer showed his former idol the door with a
sensational performance. The fourth-round thriller ended Sampras'
remarkable reign - at least for the moment. Tennis connoisseurs
knew it would be a fascinating encounter - the 29-year-old Sampras,
unbeaten in 31 matches at Wimbledon but looking strangely vulnerable,
against the 19-year-old for whom great things were forecast. The
great man had lost in the second round of his favourite Wimbledon
warm-up, the Stella Artois tournament at London's Queen's Club, to the
rising Australian Lleyton Hewitt, and dropped two sets in his
second-round match against Great Britain's Barry Cowan. Yet the
15th-seeded Federer was few people's favourite to topple the grand
master as he walked out for his first match on Centre Court on an
overcast July Monday. His talent was undoubted, but since reaching the
quarter-finals at Roland Garros three weeks earlier, he had lost to Pat
Rafter in Halle and Hewitt in s'Hertogenbosch, suggesting he was not
quite ready to beat the biggest names.
Federer was always
ahead in the three-hour 41-minute match. He won the first and third
sets - the first with a little luck, having had a dubious serve called
in his favour and profiting from a lucky net cord in a 9-7 tiebreak -
and was serving first in the fifth. As the fifth set neared its climax,
the tension mounted. Could the young pretender, still thought of as a
work in progress, overcome the man for whom the Centre Court had
become, in Boris Becker's words, his living room?
The crucial
moment came in the 12th game of the fifth set. Federer said later he
had become aware of Sampras' tendency to serve wide to the forehand
from the deuce court on big points, so when Federer had two match
points at 15-40, there was some calculated guesswork in the cleanly
struck forehand return that ended the match.
Though fiercely
competitive, Sampras was always dignified in defeat. In his post-match
news conference he said: "There are a lot of guys coming up, but Roger
is a bit extra-special. He has a great all-round game, like me doesn't
get too emotional, and is a great athlete." Little did Sampras realise
just how extra-special Federer was to become.
Despite his
ignominious exit to George Bastl the following year, Sampras had one
final hurrah, winning the US Open in 2002. It proved his last
tournament, and his Wimbledon defeat to Federer remains their sole
match. At least at tour level.
Early in 2007, Federer was
preparing for the Indian Wells tournament in California and needed a
practice partner. Aware that Sampras was looking to make a comeback on
the seniors' circuit, Federer phoned the Californian and asked if he
wanted to hit some balls. Sampras said yes, apparently without
hesitation. Federer declined to give the result, but the mutual respect
between the two most recent greats of Wimbledon history is clearly
alive and well.
|
