Mac the Knife Is This No. 1’s Public Enemy

There used to be the old target (Jimmy Connors) and the still-looming targets (Roy Emerson and Ivan Lendl) and one annoying elusive clay-court target (the French Open) to occupy Pete Sampras’ attention and abilities.

Now there’s the guy who won’t go away, won’t quit talking and, quite simply, won’t keep quiet about anything relating to tennis, Sampras or anything else.

“Pete has always said the Grand Slams are all that matter to him, but now he seems to have made an abrupt 360-degree turn and realized what No. 1 is all about,” John McEnroe told a British newspaper recently.

“It is a great achievement and certainly he is undermining the whole tour by claiming that all that matters to him are the majors. He has been doing this for years.”

Forget Marcelo Rios as Sampras’ biggest rival, at least for now. How can they be rivals when they’ve played once, way back in 1994? Andre Agassi? Maybe they’ll meet in the final of a major tournament again, somewhere, someday.

Alex Corretja? Two of his matches against Sampras have been riveting dramas, most recently in the semifinals at Hanover, Germany, in which Corretja fought off three match points. But Corretja would never fit the role of the villain in any rivalry with Sampras because he is the Nicest Man in Tennis.

No, we are speaking of McEnroe, the multimedia man who is showing no signs of middle-aged blandness on the court or off it. Lately he has been the Johnny Mac of old, hurling verbal grenades from London and points elsewhere, also taking Sampras to task for his past (and future?) Davis Cup snubs, and recently assisted by David Lloyd, the British Davis Cup captain, who had a few tough words about Sampras on the Davis Cup issue.

The British No. 1, Tim Henman, perhaps the wisest man in tennis, has stayed out of the fray involving his friend and tour colleague. In the first round of the 1999 Davis Cup, the United States is playing Great Britain at Birmingham, England, in April.

Sampras responded to the criticism last week in a conference call.

“The Davis Cup weeks are very tough weeks,” he said. “It is easy for McEnroe to criticize because he was able to do it--he was only playing 13, 14 events. I am playing 22 events, so it is a different ballgame. I think these guys should get their facts straight before they pop off.”

Only the most optimistic soul would listen to Sampras and think he is leaving the Davis Cup door wide open in 1999. If anything, the door appears to be open only an inch or so.

“You can’t have everything,” he said. “You can’t win majors, be No. 1 and be in Davis Cup. I physically can’t do it or mentally can’t do it. Two or three years ago when I felt the obligation and I wanted to play, it burned me out. It really felt like I didn’t have much at the end.

“So being No. 1 is so important and winning majors is so important. When I am 29, 30, 31, Davis Cup might be more of a priority once I break these records.”

And there are records within realistic reach. Sampras will travel to the Australian Open in January one Grand Slam shy of tying Emerson’s all-time record of 12 singles titles. And he will start the year with his 253rd total week at No. 1 on the computer, 17 weeks short of Lendl’s record 270.

But if he could achieve one thing in 1999, it would come in Paris in June.

“I would love to win the French Open,” he said. “That would be phenomenal if I could ever win that event. Winning all the majors, there’s not much more you can do.”

He will be spending more time in the Los Angeles area, having recently purchased a house here. For conditioning purposes, he plans to work with Australian trainer Brett Stephens, a fitness guru who has assisted other tour players, including Byron Black.

“Well, I’m trying to get all the Australian support I can get,” Sampras said, joking. “I have heard a lot of good things about him, and spending more time here in L.A. I needed someone here to push me, but it has nothing to do with [Aussie] Pat Rafter.”

QUOTE, UNQUOTE

* “I know what it takes to do it and I really don’t see anyone in today’s game having the consistency, the durability that it takes to be No. 1, not only for one or two years, but six years, that is the majority of a career.

“You need the game, you need the heart, you need the mind. Some guys have two of the three. To do it for six years, you need everything,” Sampras, on why his record will not be broken.

* “If somebody is losing the way I lost [at Hanover] and is happy, he is really fake. So show me anyone who would be happy right now in my situation, you know, I will give him $1 million,” Carlos Moya, asked whether he was as happy as Corretja was at the French Open, when Moya defeated Corretja in the final.

* “That power, I took it from the heart, and from my work and also from the family [members] who died a couple of weeks ago and a couple of months ago. I was just maybe talking to them and telling them, ‘Come on, give me the power to finish this match and win it,’ ” Corretja, who dedicated his ATP Championship title to his late uncle and aunt.

* “No. And no,” Sampras, on whether he heard from Connors or expected to eventually receive congratulations on breaking his record for most consecutive years at No. 1.