TENNIS / JULIE CART : Serving Up Best and Worst of 1995: Sampras and Seles, Pierce and Jensen

Tennis served up a tumultuous, fascinating year in 1995. Any sport would be pleased to have produced such moments. Among the best:

--Pete Sampras’ head-on collision with the fragility of life when his coach, Tim Gullikson, fell gravely ill at the Australian Open. Sampras was overcome with emotion during his quarterfinal match. Why did it take his crying on court to show us he has a big heart?

--The women’s singles final at Wimbledon arrived in the nick of time after a fortnight of savage criticism of the women’s game. Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario’s match saved the day with its athleticism and drama. Few will forget that single astonishing game that lasted 20 minutes and 32 points.

--Boris Becker’s gratifying advance to the Wimbledon final, 10 years after his first triumph. In a sport in which players are believed to be over the hill at 27, Becker’s ambush of Andre Agassi in the semifinals and his gracious loss to Pete Sampras in the final made an argument for the “elder statesmen” of the game to stick around. Are you listening, Stefan Edberg?

--Chanda Rubin’s involvement in two of the oddest matches of the year: her improbable comeback against Jana Novotna at the French Open and her victory in the longest women’s match ever at Wimbledon.

--Sampras and Graf overcoming tremendous personal turmoil and debilitating injuries to have their best seasons.

--The giggling, jangling return of that lovable oddball, Monica Seles. Out of shape and rusty, Seles reminded us that it was always her iron-clad mental game that allowed her to win.

Things we would rather forget:

--Mary Pierce’s “breakthrough” year gone bust. After winning the Australian Open in January, Pierce won only one tournament.

--Murphy Jensen and Jeff Tarango at Wimbledon. Americans everywhere cringed when Jensen skipped out and Tarango was thrown out of the biggest tennis tournament in the world.

--Anything worn by Andre Agassi.

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More than the format has changed for the State Farm Evert Cup. Judging by the players committed to the event so far, the tournament will have an excellent field. Fourteen of the top 20 women are scheduled to play, including Monica Seles, Gabriela Sabatini and Conchita Martinez.

The format change for the event at Indian Wells should be welcomed by fans, who will be able to see the men’s tournament--the Newsweek Champions Cup--at the same time.

The women’s main draw begins play on March 8, and the first two rounds of the tournament will be played over the weekend. Men’s qualifying is also in the first week. The men’s main draw begins first-round play on March 11. The women’s final will be on March 16 and the men’s on March 17.

The event’s namesake, Chris Evert, is satisfied that finally the tournament has found a place on the women’s schedule that will allow it to get support from players.

“The timing of the event is crucial,” Evert said on a conference call last week. “The addition of Monica Seles will be a huge draw. People are curious about her. I’m most impressed with the depth. It’s a 56-draw [instead of] a 32-draw. It’s a bigger and a better tournament.”

Last year Evert had expressed reservations about where the event had been scheduled on the WTA calendar and wondered aloud why top players such as Steffi Graf seldom played. The way the schedule works this year, however, there are no other events during the two weeks of the tournament and it leaves enough rest time before the next big event, the Lipton Championships, which begin March 18.

Tournament director Charlie Pasarell has long admired the Lipton format, which was the only tournament outside the Grand Slam events to combine men’s and women’s fields.

Although some had expressed a concern that the women might be overshadowed by the men, Evert said that a combined event would draw more media coverage, and that’s good news for a tournament.

“There’s nothing negative, as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “As long as we’ve got a good player field. . . . I’d be concerned if there were only three of the top 20. But with this field, there should be no problems. I think the only way women’s tennis can progress is with television.”

Evert said ESPN will televise some selected women’s matches during the week, one of the women’s semifinals and the final.

She also said that, although some tournament directors have been considering similar combined events, the substantial scheduling conflicts between the men’s and women’s calendars may leave room for only two.

“I don’t think it’s the wave of the future,” she said. “I would think this will be it.”

The men’s field for the Newsweek Champions Cup has not been announced.

Tennis Notes

John Lloyd on the decision by Australian Open officials to increase the men’s prize money but not the women’s: “I agree with it. I’m a big fan of women’s tennis. In fact, a lot of the women’s Grand Slam finals have been better than the men’s. But I personally don’t think the women’s draw deserves 128 players. I think the top players belong, but I don’t think the depth of women’s tennis at the lower end is strong enough to sustain a 128-player draw.” . . . Television coverage of the Australian Open began Sunday on ESPN2. . . . Richard D. Ferman Jr. has been appointed executive director of the USTA, replacing Marshall Happer III, who resigned in August. . . . Mission Hills will play host today through Sunday to a huge seniors championship, the Nabisco Snackwell’s, which will attract 560 players in age divisions from 35 to 75 for men and 40 to 70 for women. . . . Mission Hills also announced this week that it would dedicate its grass court complex to the memory of Pancho Gonzalez in a special ceremony March 26.