Heat's on Pete

By BILL DWYRE

Jan. 16, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES SPORTS EDITOR

MELBOURNE, Australia —

Even though he is among the best at making the game of tennis look easy, it seldom is for Pete Sampras.

He is arguably the best player in the world, although his current No. 3 ranking is a fair indication of what a great year No. 1 Andre Agassi had in 1999, as well as a result of a disk injury in Sampras’ back that put him out of the U.S. Open the day before it started.

Down here, Sampras enters a special kind of pressure-cooker, since the record 13th Grand Slam title he seeks--a record in the tennis world that brings the same kind of reverent tones as DiMaggio’s 56 and Wooden’s 10--would knock an Aussie off a share of the perch. The fabled Roy Emerson, whose statue is among those that fans walk past as they head to the matches at the Australian Open, also has 12 Grand Slam titles, and there remains a strong contingent of Australians who wish that Sampras, at 28, were grand-slammed out.

While Sampras has won here twice, beating Todd Martin in the final in 1994 and Carlos Moya in 1997, the heat in the dead of Australia’s summer is not always the best thing for Sampras, who has been known to wilt under hot conditions and even had to vomit his way to victory one sweltering afternoon a few years ago at the U.S. Open.

Sampras looked somewhat drained at the end of a semifinal match here Friday in a round-robin exhibition tournament called the Colonial Classic. He lost two tiebreakers to Australian hopeful Mark Philippoussis, and while his 7-6, 7-6 defeat occurred without him losing his serve, the heat--it was like Palm Springs at noon in July--seemed to sap both players. Indeed, the Saturday final that was supposed to match Agassi and Philippoussis never came to pass. Philippoussis woke up with a stiff neck and begged off, alienating an Australian fan base that had been geared to root him toward a title. Instead, the “Scud,” as they call Philippoussis here because of his missile-like serves, has fizzled in the public’s eyes before he plays his first match.

“The heat does sometimes bother Pete,” said Alex O’Brien, his Davis Cup teammate and occasional practice partner at Sampras’ home in Beverly Hills when Texan O’Brien is visiting his girlfriend in West Hollywood.

“That worries me, because I’d love to see him do it here. And he is so ready. When we hit recently, he was just so smooth, and so powerful at the same time. He has a rhythm going that can’t be matched, and everything he hits is so heavy, and so hard to handle.”

For Sampras, the topper came when his first-match draw put him against Wayne Arthurs, who is certainly no soft touch.

Arthurs is a 6-foot-3 left-hander who is, in tennis terminology, the ultimate dangerous floater. Besides being Australian, with all the built-in advantages that carries playing here, he is a huge server. Arthurs went all the way through the qualifying rounds at Wimbledon last summer and into the fourth round of the main draw before he lost a service game. That was more than 100 straight holds.

When he eventually lost in the fourth round, it took Agassi to break his serve and take him out, and afterward Agassi, who has spent a career facing bullets from Richard Krajicek, Greg Rusedski, Philippoussis and Sampras, declared Arthurs’ serve the best he had ever seen.

Nor is the pressure likely to get to Arthurs. Known as friendly and loosey-goosey, he made his Davis Cup debut this year in the semifinals, filling in for an injured Philippoussis, and merely beat Russia’s Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the No. 2 player in the world, and Marat Safin, sparking a 4-1 Australian push into the final.

Sampras, as always, is being philosophical and low-key.

He said that, while his injury just before the U.S. Open was devastating at the time and while his dreams have been to break the record on his home turf, his time in Los Angeles was a real battery-charger.

“I had good workouts, hit a lot with some of the UCLA players,” he said. “I also hit with some of the younger guys on the tour who were around, Kevin Kim and Phillip King, as well as with Alex.

“And I do think a lot about that 13th title. It’s a dream, a fantasy, it’s one of those great moments still to come. Maybe it’ll be this year, maybe next. One day, it’s just going to happen, I guess.”

Ironically, when Sampras was injured at the U.S. Open and Australian star Patrick Rafter quit near the end of a night match because of an injured shoulder, speculation was that Sampras’ back problem would be much more severe than Rafter’s shoulder injury. But Rafter has yet to return to form, and though he has played in a few doubles events, will not play singles here. Sampras, on the other hand, came firing back with an impressive win over Agassi in the final of the ATP season-ending event in Hanover, Germany, in November. Many who saw that match in person say that Sampras has never been better.

“I’m not sure that that was necessary to send any sort of message,” said Sampras, who then quickly articulated exactly what kind of message it had, indeed, sent.

“It probably allowed me to retain that aura,” he said. “The other guys will know I am still there, can still play on that level.”

Key question: Does Wayne Arthurs buy into the aura concept?

It will happen here Monday night. While Americans sleep in the early hours of the day, Sampras versus Arthurs will tell a lot about whether the Australian Open 2000 also will be lucky No. 13 for Pete Sampras.

Center Court at Melbourne Park was renamed Rod Laver Arena, after the Australian great. The half-hour ceremony today included a friendly doubles match involving Sampras and Emerson. Laver, who was reached at home in Rancho Mirage, said he didn’t attend the ceremony because he recently had been in Australia, but deemed it a “grand honor.” . . .

A women’s warmup event in Sydney produced interesting results. It was won by French player Amelie Mauresmo, who beat defending Australian champion Martina Hingis in the semifinals and No. 2 Lindsay Davenport in Saturday’s final. Mauresmo had been the subject of some verbal jabs from both Hingis and Davenport here last year over her husky build and, mostly from Hingis, her sexual preference. Hingis defeated Mauresmo in last year’s final. . . .

The men’s side of the tournament in Sydney was won by 18-year-old Australian Lleyton Hewitt, who has already won all 10 of his matches and two events this year. He is the “leader of the race” in the new ATP point standings setup that is sure to confuse tennis fans for a while, not to mention sportswriters. . . .

O’Brien, who teamed with Canadian Sebastien Lareau to win the U.S. Open doubles title in September, is not playing with Lareau here, nor likely for the rest of this year. O’Brien wants a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in the Sydney Games, so he is opting to play this year with fellow American Jared Palmer. Lareau is following suit, teaming with fellow Canadian Daniel Nestor.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Grand Slam Start

The Australian Open will be played at Melbourne Park:

FACTS

* When: Monday-Jan. 30.

* TV: Coverage begins tonight, 9:30 p.m., ESPN2.

* New year: Andre Agassi can become the first man to reach four consecutive Grand Slam finals since Rod Laver swept them all in 1969.

TOP SEEDS

MEN

1. Andre Agassi, U.S.

2. Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Russia

3. Pete Sampras, U.S.