Sampras Proves King of Nyet : Tennis: He wins third match against Russians, defeating Kafelnikov in singles to clinch Davis Cup for United States.

They looked at the record book and said that Pete Sampras can’t win the big ones on clay.

But on red clay dust that the Russians had spread on their home floor especially to stop him, the world’s top-ranked tennis player completed a dramatic personal sweep of the Davis Cup final Sunday and carried the U.S. team to the championship.

Not only did Sampras defeat Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Russia’s cocky, mercurial star; he humiliated him in front of nearly 14,000 stunned supporters on Kafelnikov’s favorite surface. “He didn’t give me a chance,” the Russian moaned.

The 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) triumph gave the United States an unbeatable 3-1 lead in the best-of-five series and its first title since 1992. It is the 31st time the United States has won the silver cup since Dwight Filley Davis, a rich Harvard student, donated it in 1900.

In a later match that was shortened because it had no bearing on the Cup’s possession, Russia’s Andrei Chesnokov beat Jim Courier, 6-7 (1-7), 7-5, 6-0, to make the final score 3-2.

Sampras figured heroically in both earlier victories of this first United States-Russia Davis Cup showdown. He collapsed with leg and groin cramps seconds after outlasting Chesnokov in a 3-hour 38-minute duel Friday, then came back stiff and sore the next day to help Todd Martin dispatch Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy in doubles.

“The Russians were looking at me as the weak link on the slow red clay,” Sampras said Sunday. “To come here and play on my worst surface against very tough opponents and a very tough crowd . . . I think today was the best clay-court match I’ve ever played.”

U.S. captain Tom Gullikson, buoyed by his first Cup victory, was even more categorical.

“I’ve never seen better clay-court tennis,” Gullikson said. “I’ve never seen better tennis for the first two sets. . . . And he couldn’t have picked a bigger moment than in the Davis Cup final to win it for your country.”

At 24, Sampras has collected seven Grand Slam singles titles, including this year’s Wimbledon and U.S. Open, and finished the past three seasons atop the world rankings. But he badly wants the French Open title, the only Grand Slam on clay and the only one to elude him.

And until this weekend, he had lived with a painful memory of the Davis Cup semifinal he blew last year by cramping and defaulting in the decisive match against Sweden’s Stefan Edberg.

By winning here despite a “very, very tight” right hamstring, Sampras said he erased that humiliation and gained “good confidence going into the clay-court season next year.”

Unnerved at first by a polite but partisan crowd hoping for its nation’s first Davis Cup title, Sampras improved with each day on the indoor clay at Moscow’s Olympic Sports Complex.

To the delight of a tiny U.S. cheering section with a huge American flag, he opened Sunday with a service winner and closed with an ace, his last of 11 in 2 hours 1 minute of play.

He gave up two points on serve in the first set and seven points in the second, while breaking Kafelnikov repeatedly with a full arsenal of cannon returns, spinning drop shots, overhead smashes and cross-court forehands. He won 20 points at the net to Kafelnikov’s five.

At one stretch, Sampras scored 11 consecutive points, including a break of the Russian’s serve that made the difference in the second set. “Yevgeny, think!” yelled a frustrated fan.

“My plan was to stay in the match as long as possible and make Pete move,” said Kafelnikov, hoping his foe would cramp again. “But I couldn’t manage that because Pete was playing at his best. . . . In the first two sets, his serve was flawless.”

Only in the third set did the 21-year-old Russian play up to his No. 6 world ranking. But Sampras wasn’t giving much away.

Forced to break point five times on his first serve, the American fought back twice with aces and held. He broke Kafelnikov in the next game with three consecutive forehand winners.

The set then see-sawed through three more service breaks, two of them by Kafelnikov, toward the decisive tie-breaker. In that showdown, Kafelnikov became the first to lose service when he volleyed wide off the top of the net and fell behind, 3-2, never to catch up.

Sampras “picked his spots to be aggressive, and that’s the key for Pete on the clay,” Gullikson said after embracing his triumphant player on the court. “If he can get the right mix of patience and aggression, he can be outstanding. He found a good balance this weekend, especially today.”

The U.S. team will share $800,000 for its victory in the final--”a little extra Christmas money,” Sampras called it.

Gullikson hopes the Cup’s prestige will make his perennial chore easier--to persuade selfish U.S. stars to bend pro tour schedules and play with the team. Sampras and the now-injured Andre Agassi, the world’s top two players, joined the squad this year starting only with the quarterfinal; Michael Chang refused to join at all.

“With the players we’ve got in the United States,” Gullikson said, “there’s no reason why we really couldn’t dominate tennis for quite a few more years if this same group of players stays committed like they are now.”

For Gullikson and Sampras, the competition had a private emotional backdrop. Gullikson’s twin brother, Tim, who is Sampras’ coach and confidant, is undergoing chemotherapy for tumors that were discovered on his brain last winter.

Speaking to reporters after Sunday’s match, Gullikson’s voice broke. “It’s been a tough year with my twin brother in a much bigger competition, fighting, really, for his life,” he said. “For us to win this thing means a lot.”

Said Sampras: “I thought about Tim during the match, and I thought about Tom. I certainly was trying my best to do it for Tom.”