Sampras Pulls Out the Stops : Tennis: For once, he makes his feelings clear--and defeats Gilbert for the L.A. championship.

Like any card player holding aces, Pete Sampras doesn’t normally give much of a clue how he feels, unless you count an occasional raised eyebrow.

But there he was Sunday afternoon, serving for the match against Brad Gilbert in the Volvo/Los Angeles tournament final at UCLA and barely stopping short of calling the lines.

“Yeah!” Sampras said as an ace hit the court with a splat.

“Yep!” he said when his backhand passing shot traveled cross-court and bounced away quickly.

For Sampras, this qualified as a filibuster, or at least a talk show. Gilbert had no answer for Sampras, the 19-year-old power hitter who embarked on his long journey to defend the Grand Slam he didn’t think he would win by winning a title he didn’t think he could lose.

Sampras served nine aces, finished the week with 40, gave himself a jump-start for the U.S. Open and beat Gilbert, 6-2, 6-7 (7-5), 6-3.

“My confidence is quite high right now,” Sampras said.

Only a week ago, after losing his first match at Montreal, Sampras’ confidence could be located only by sonar. But he got past Gilbert by the margin of a single service break in the third set and won his first tournament since he surprised himself and the rest of tennis by winning the U.S. Open last September.

Seeded second behind Stefan Edberg, who lost to Gilbert in a tough three-set semifinal, Sampras got the only edge he needed when Gilbert seemed to tire in the third set.

Sampras took a 4-2 lead when he broke Gilbert with a service return that streaked cross-court barely beyond the reach of Gilbert, who explained what happened with his customary bluntness.

“He just whacked a couple of balls,” Gilbert said.

It was not exactly a vintage Sampras performance, not with a first-serve percentage of 44 and a second set that he allowed Gilbert to dominate.

To his credit, Gilbert knew it was time to change tactics in the second set--to chip and charge--after he got pushed around in a first set that took only 30 minutes.

So why change? Why not, Gilbert said.

“I was being cruised, so why not try something different,” Gilbert asked.

The strategy worked, for a while. Gilbert kept the pressure on Sampras, came to the net whenever he got a short ball, forced a tiebreaker and won the key point for 4-3 when Sampras missed an easy passing shot.

After winning the first set with such ease, Sampras said he merely had lost his concentration, which he identified as an area that demands his immediate attention.

“There’s nothing specific I need to work on as far as my strokes,” he said. “I just need to maintain a constant level of tennis. I had a lapse in the second set (and) it’s something I really don’t think the top players do. Lendl wouldn’t have let that happen. It’s a little bit frustrating.”

At the same time, Gilbert’s level of frustration was on the rise. It became evident early on, when he slammed his racket on the net to protest a call.

It was even more noticeable during a series of soliloquies delivered at key moments, highlighted by this one after a poor shot: “Gosh, I hit that like a geek!”

Gilbert’s personal trauma crested when he was broken in the third set. He snatched the cap off his head and served it into the fence.

Sampras was left to tally his earnings: $32,400 for winning the tournament, which in itself has got to be worth something to him mentally, as Gilbert pointed out.

“I mean, last week he lost to Shuzo (Matsuoka) and he should never lose to Shuzo, no offense to Shuzo,” Gilbert said. “Now, Pete needs to be in the semifinals and finals the next couple of weeks for him to maybe win the Open. He just needs to play a lot of matches.”

Sampras continues his three-week warm-up for the defense of his U.S. Open title this week with a tournament at Cincinnati and the following week at Indianapolis, where nothing less than high expectations await him--as usual.

For a player who was sidelined for two months because of various injuries and whose results on the court have been wildly erratic, Sampras is going to encounter pressure he cannot be familiar with at 19. So he plans to ignore it.

“I’m just going to go out there and not worry about the situation, just about my opponent,” Sampras said. “I’m sure I’ll be bombarded (by attention), but it’s just something I’ll deal with when I come to it. I think I’ll be OK.”

So there is much to think about for Sampras, who is already losing his youth. He will turn 20 Aug. 12.

* NO. 1 NO MORE: Monica Seles will lose her top world ranking after being defeated by Jennifer Capriati. C4