Serve’s Up, So Sampras Rides It to Victory : Wimbledon: Becker has no answer as defending champion uses the power game to win his third title in a row.

Boris Becker’s dream of winning a fourth Wimbledon title was dashed by the velocity of Pete Sampras’ serve in Sunday’s Wimbledon singles final.

Sampras showed why he is the consummate grass court player of his era, picking apart Becker’s impressive serve and using his own like a scalpel to carve out his third consecutive title, 6-7 (7-5), 6-2, 6-4, 6-2. Sampras is the first man since Bjorn Borg to win three Wimbledon championships in a row.

Becker won the first of his three titles here 10 years ago, but all of his skill and experience were rendered useless in the face of Sampras’ serving barrage. Sampras gave Becker no opening. Rarely in a match of this level is one player so dominant. Becker never held a break point.

It was just such a display of grass court play--a huge serve, a stabbed return, then an emphatic volley winner--in last year’s Sampras-Goran Ivanisevic final that brought a flood of criticism. Too fast and too boring, was the verdict. Apparently the officials at the All England Club agreed. They reduced the pressure of the tennis balls to siphon off some power from the serve.

Two weeks of beating sun ambushed that notion. The heat gave Centre Court all the absorption qualities of a sidewalk in summer. Sunday’s final also featured quick points and minuscule rallies. The longest rally lasted only six strokes, and that happened only twice in two hours 28 minutes.

The match, played in high heat and humidity, may well have been tedious, but there is also an appreciation of the skill involved.

“People who know the game understand that this is grass- court tennis,” Sampras said. “People watch Wimbledon more than any other tournament in the world and they see fast points. You have to understand when you have two guys that serve extremely big and volley pretty well, you are not going to have long rallies.”

Sampras won his 21st consecutive match at Wimbledon. His last loss on grass came more than a year ago in the final at the Queens Club. At 23, Sampras has won six Grand Slam titles. The No. 2-ranked player won $584,000 and Becker, No. 3, won $291,000.

Sampras dedicated the victory to his coach, Tim Gullikson, who is being treated for brain tumors.

“He’s a true champion,” Sampras said. “The way he’s handled his treatment has been a real inspiration.”

Sampras played as if inspired. Rarely is Becker so upstaged as a server. Sampras’ 23 aces were the most he has served in one match here. Becker got 22 points off Sampras’ serve in 22 games, and seven of those were double faults. Sampras allowed only three points off his serve in the third set.

Becker’s dream of winning here again has been more intense since he was written off as an over-the-hill 27-year-old. But Sampras shattered the dream. Becker hid his frustration, largely because he understood there is nothing a player can do when someone is serving like Sampras. At one point in the fourth set, he stood at the baseline to return serve with his hands over his eyes.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference whether I had my eyes open or not, he would have hit the line anyway,” Becker said. “When he’s feeling good about his serve, he actually goes for both serves. That was the trouble today. Even though he missed a couple of first serves, he went for his second and he aced me a couple of times on it. Basically, I didn’t have a normal return to hit.

“He’s an unbelievably good front-runner. I felt like, at the end of the first and beginning of the second, [that] I’m starting to get a hold of the match a little bit. I lost my serve and he went up to another level. Once he’s up a break early in the set, he hits those bombs and you just hope for rain.”

Becker was no slouch at the service line, either. The first service break, the third game of the second set, came one hour into the match. Becker won the first set tie-break on the strength of an errant backhand volley from Sampras.

Sampras took the loss of the set hard and took his revenge in the second set, on Becker’s second service game. He hit three return winners to set up triple break point. He only needed two to break. Sampras broke again in the fifth game--when his sizzling returns pressured Becker to double fault twice.

Sampras broke again in the third game of the third set, enough to take the set, and broke twice in the fourth.

Sampras beamed after the match’s final point and uncharacteristically peeled off his shirt and tossed it to fans. He then showed some of the self-consciousness of youth during the post-match ceremony. As he accepted the Challenge Cup from the Duke of Kent, Sampras tilted forward awkwardly rather than bowed, and later balked at the endless trophy posing.

Becker laughed and joked as he looked on, then was asked to assess Sampras’ accomplishment. The German was full of praise and a little philosophy.

“I think with many things, you don’t appreciate [them] at the moment,” he said. “Pete is going to get a little older and other new players will come, then maybe you would appreciate Pete Sampras more.

“Many people have been talking about a role model with Andre Agassi. If there is a role model in tennis, it’s Pete Sampras. He’s behaving perfectly on court. He’s a real nice fellow off the court and he’s playing great tennis altogether. He doesn’t really have a bad shot in his game. I think he’s extremely good for the game of tennis.”

Becker was clearly the crowd’s sentimental favorite. He was cajoled by their cheers into taking an impromptu runner-up lap, to a warm ovation.

His special relationship with Wimbledon is well documented. It may not be over, but it has changed in the wistful way that old friends behave when they know they won’t be seeing each other as often as before.

“Unfortunately, he owns Centre Court now,” Becker said of Sampras. “I used to own it a few years back, but it belongs to him now.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WIMBLEDON

Pete Sampras became one of seven men to win at least three consecutive Wimbledon titles: CONSECUTIVE MEN’S SINGLES TITLES

No. Player Years 6 William Renshaw 1881-86 5 H. Laurie Doherty 1902-06 5 Bjorn Borg 1976-80 4 Reggie Doherty 1897-1900 4 Anthony Wilding 1910-13 3 Fred Perry 1934-36 3 Pete Sampras 1993-95

Martina Navratilova moved one behind Billie Jean King for most Wimbledon titles. The list: * ALL-TIME WIMBLEDON TITLES No.: Player

20: Billie Jean King

19: Martina Navratilova

19: Elizabeth Ryan

15: Suzanne Lenglen

14: Willie Renshaw