Sampras Leads Fans to Tennis’ Promised Land

Pancho Gonzalez and Rod Laver dominated tennis in their day. Now, when Pete Sampras serves 130-m.p.h. aces clipping alternate sidelines, journalists grumble there are no jokes in the press conference. Must we call in Billy Crystal? (Mike Downey, Aug. 31). Along with boxing, tennis is one of the few sports that’s a single person-to-person confrontation. The degree of mental focus and physical capacity needed to win is awesome. For our time, Sampras has this; he will surely go down as one of the all-time greats. We should applaud him, not limit him to only one serve or demand Jay Leno one-liners.

CHARLTON HESTON

Beverly Hills