BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 9 : COMMENTARY : Tennis Losses Not Considered Major

The best argument yet for why it may be silly to have the sport of tennis in the Olympic Games sat before a microphone at a postmatch news conference here Sunday and unknowingly addressed that very issue.

His name is Pete Sampras, he is 10 days shy of turning 21 and he is a multimillionaire.

On yet another hot and sweaty morning here, on the gummy-slow Center Court at the Olympic tennis complex, Sampras had cruised to a two-sets-to-love lead over Andrei Cherkasov, then started to slide, slowly at first and then like a skier on a steep slope. He had won the first two sets, 7-6 (9-7), 6-1, but had to fight back from a service break down in the third set before yielding, 7-5.

By the fourth set, when forehands and backhands may be less important than motivation and willpower, Sampras was in full decline. He lost the set, 6-0, when even one hold of service would have put him in the crucial position of serving first in the final set, and then went out unceremoniously after one service break in the fifth, 6-3.

Clearly, the better player had not won the match.

Sampras has won the U.S. Open, was a semifinalist at Wimbledon this year, was seeded No. 3 here and is ranked No. 3 in the world. His Russian conqueror is ranked No. 26, has never been past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament and is like so many on the pro tennis tour--a steady player making good money and few waves.

And clearly, the U.S. men’s tennis team, although competing as individuals, now failed miserably.

Jim Courier, No. 1 seeded and No. 1 in the world, had been knocked out in three drama-free sets Saturday by Marc Rosset of Switzerland. The day before, Michael Chang, No. 6-seeded and No. 6 in the world, had gone out in four sets to Jaime Oncins of Brazil.

Cherkasov was seeded 13th, Rosset and Oncins unseeded.

That left no Americans in the men’s quarterfinals. Also, no Boris Becker, no Michael Stich, no Stefan Edberg. In fact, the only one of the top 10 seeded players to get into the quarterfinals was No. 4 Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, who had to go to 9-7 of a fifth set against Jakob Hlasek of Switzerland to advance.

So, it was with this backdrop Sunday that Sampras met the press, with full knowledge that only the second Olympic tournament since Paris in 1924 had, at least in the men’s draw, become something resembling your basic European clay-courter, the kind that is listed in the small type on the back pages of the sports section and always includes names such as Emilio Sanchez, Fabrice Santoro, Jordi Arrese, Leonardo Lavalle, Oncins, Ivanisevic, Rosset and Cherkasov.

Those are the names of the 1992 Olympic quarterfinalists.

But for those listening to Sampras, the issues of American losses or overly slow Spanish clay courts that seem to favor the Europeans weren’t as pertinent as his reaction to the bigger issue of tennis in the Olympics.

“This is a very big tournament,” he said, almost as if he had been programmed to say so, “but it is just not in the same category as one of the Grand Slams--(the Australian, French and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon). Yes, I’m very disappointed.”

Then he described his demise in the fourth and fifth sets.

“In the fourth set, I just wasn’t fighting,” he said. “I wasn’t really tanking, but when the thing got to 4-0, well, I just kind of started saving myself for the fifth.

“And then, in the fifth, I missed a couple of easy forehands, missed them by inches, and then played a bad game on my serve at 3-4 and it was pretty much over.”

Pretty much over. Ho-hum.

“I was looking forward to the Olympics and I wanted to walk out of Barcelona with a singles medal, but this was just a very tough tournament, with best-of-five set singles and even best-of-five-set doubles, which is absurd. Plus, I’ve been playing a lot this year and the Olympics came at a tough time in the schedule, when you want to get ready for the U.S. Open rather than being on clay courts here.

“So, it’s disappointing, but life goes on.”

Indeed, from Sampras’ reaction, life would go on quite easily. This was clearly not a young man feeling the pangs of lost opportunity. It may have been the Olympics, and he may have done his best to say as many of the right things as he could. But clearly, Sampras was about as crushed as he would have been after a loss at Stratton Mountain or the Swedish Open.

For Pete Sampras, his Olympic loss was hardly Olympian. It was more like another day at the office.

It is hard to criticize him for that, or any of the players such as Becker and Edberg and others who have come here bravely, tried to talk themselves into playing well and fighting hard for the good old USA or Germany or Sweden, but have simply not been able to buy into their own self-imposed hype.

All week long here, players have been saying that this tournament “just didn’t feel like a Grand Slam event.” They said it as if they expected it to and were sadly disappointed.

And all week long, players have been trying to talk delicately about the fact that, in their lives of tournament globetrotting, they don’t need one more dateline. This may be the Olympics, but it also is an intrusion. And if that sounds like petulant pouting from fuzzy-cheeked millionaires, then so be it.

The Olympic tennis tournament is merely another stop on the pro tour, made somewhat bigger by the Olympic label.

The players have tried hard to put on a positive face about it, and certainly those eventually winning medals will wax philosophically about their Olympic experience.

But at least for the moment, this is a tournament in which the No. 3 player in the world tanked the end of a set, then succumbed fairly easily to a player substantially below him in ability. And pretty much admitted to both.

Try that at Wimbledon and see what the reaction is.

Postscript: Late Sunday night, America’s final hope for a medal in men’s tennis, the doubles team of Sampras and Courier, won the first two sets of their match against the aging Spanish team of Sanchez and Sergio Casal, 7-5, 6-4. Then they lost the next three, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.

Tennis Notes

In one match that did go the Americans’ way, Gigi Fernandez and Mary Joe Fernandez beat Germany’s Steffi Graf and Anke Huber, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.