Sampras Slams Into the Wall in 5-Set New York Marathon : Tennis: The top-ranked player gives his all in a shocking loss to No. 23 Jaime Yzaga of Peru.

In a real-life drama, played out not far off Broadway, the unsinkable Pete Sampras sagged and sank here Tuesday in the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

It was an upset of epic proportions, an 8.0 on the Richter scale of tennis.

The top-seeded-and-ranked Sampras, winner of four of the last five Grand Slam events and 35 of his last 36 Grand Slam matches, lost to the 23rd-ranked Jaime Yzaga of Peru. The five-set match, won by the 26-year-old Yzaga in 3 hours 38 minutes, ended with Yzaga stepping up and cracking Sampras’ high-kicking 94-m.p.h. first serve with a backhand that zipped cross court and cleanly past a charging Sampras.

Just like that, the 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 struggle was over. A tournament that had appeared to be all ecstasy for Sampras had turned into nearly four hours of agony on the Stadium court. He had given all he had, had carried on through the last four games purely on the energy flowing from the crowd of 20,000. And Yzaga had had more.

Said Sampras: “I just hit the wall today.”

Said Yzaga: “I congratulate him because he never really gave up, and obviously, he wasn’t feeling well. But that’s what makes a champion. He kept fighting until the end.”

Although three years younger than Yzaga, Sampras was nowhere near as fit. Until the start of this tournament, he hadn’t played a competitive match since the Davis Cup on July 17. He rested a left ankle that had developed calcium deposits, and his run through the early rounds of the U.S. Open had been, as it turns out, misleading.

“I’m just not in great shape now,” he said. “And I acknowledge the fact that I’ve taken five weeks off and not really played many matches. At the end, I just didn’t have anything left.”

Ironically, about the only thing that didn’t break down on Sampras’ body was the notorious left ankle.

“I got blisters on my feet--my feet are raw,” he said. “Everything is just sore. My whole body.”

Asked if he could have played had he somehow gotten past Yzaga, he nodded, then added, “With a day off, and with rest, and maybe 20 hours of massages.”

The drama that played out was high theater. Once Sampras failed to knock Yzaga out in a fourth-set tiebreaker, he was in deep trouble. But like a game boxer, he kept getting off his stool and coming out for the next round, only to return more bloodied than before.

With the late afternoon shadows creeping longer over the court, Yzaga got up a service break in the fifth and ran that out to a 5-2 lead. Sampras, looking like a winded NBA player along the lane during free throws, kept bending over, hands on knees, stealing every moment between points for every breath of air he could find. Continuing to play had to be agony. Watching it certainly was.

But somehow, with the wildly nationalistic American crowd frantically urging him on, Sampras reached back and held at 3-5, then battled Yzaga from the baseline until the Peruvian clay-court specialist finally missed a forehand inches long for break-back and 4-5. Sampras held for 5-5, then Yzaga held to send Sampras back out to serve at 5-6.

With the match-time clock moving toward 3 3/4 hours, and with the stadium atmosphere resembling a Davis Cup match in Paraguay, Sampras sent a running cross-court forehand wide and Yzaga had match point. Sampras sent his big kicker at Yzaga’s backhand, and Yzaga answered with the shot heard ‘round the tennis world.

“He’s got one of the better backhands on the tour,” Sampras said. “I just felt I needed to come in, hit a three-quarter speed serve and put the pressure on him. But he came up with a good shot.”

Sampras left the court quickly, managing a feeble wave as he was escorted by trainers and medical people. And after much speculation about stomach ailments and food poisoning, two doctors met with the press, followed closely by Sampras. The diagnosis from all was simple, and very un-medical sounding: Pete Sampras was dead tired.

Sampras said, “I can look back on this year and say that once you win a Grand Slam, it’s a good year; if you win two, it’s a great year. But I’m so disappointed, being out the whole summer and not preparing well, and all that just kind of halted a good year I’ll get over this, I mean, I wanted to come down and talk to you guys and tell you guys how I’m feeling. That’s important to me.”

Sampras also said he hadn’t decided whether he will play Davis Cup later this month against Sweden, and that, at this point, the U.S. Open looks like Andre Agassi’s show.

“I think he’s got a really good shot,” Sampras said. “The way he’s playing, I think he’s got as good a chance as anybody.”

U.S. Open Notes

No. 4 Michael Stich of Germany completed the quarterfinal field, emerging as the top remaining seeded player in the field when he beat No. 14 Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia, 7-6 (10-8), 6-3, 6-2. Stich will play Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden, with the rest of the men’s quarterfinals pitting Yzaga against Karel Novacek of the Czech Republic, Andre Agassi against Thomas Muster of Austria and No. 9 Todd Martin against Bernd Karbacher of Germany. Agassi and Muster, and Martin and Karbacher will play today. . . . Bjorkman advanced by beating Joern Renzenbrink of Germany, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (7-3), 6-3, and Novacek advanced by beating Javier Frana of Argentina, 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (7-3), 6-3.

On the women’s side, second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain gained a semifinal berth by easily handling No. 5 Kimiko Date of Japan, 6-3, 6-0. She will play No. 8 Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina, who ousted the last remaining American woman, unseeded Gigi Fernandez, 6-2, 7-5. . . . Today’s quarterfinals match No. 1 Steffi Graf of Germany against No. 11 Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, and No. 4 Mary Pierce of France against No. 7 Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic.