It Takes Some Time, but Sampras Finds Zone

Somewhere, midway through the third set of his third-round Australian Open tennis match here today, Pete Sampras drifted back from wherever he had been. And so, the quest for a record 13th title in a Grand Slam event remains alive and kicking.

But just barely. Sampras, the No. 3-seeded player in the tournament and a man pursuing one of the most cherished records in the sport, spent 1 hour 28 minutes just pursuing a break point against the No. 151-ranked player in the world, Wayne Black.

He didn’t actually get the break until 11 minutes later, and even when he won the third set of his eventual 6-7 (9), 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 victory, the tide never really turned in this match and the result wasn’t easy to see until Black finally volleyed a shot at his feet long of the baseline, 2 hours and 48 minutes after it had started.

There was just no way to figure this match, or to have predicted this kind of nail-biter in advance.

Black, a former All-American at USC, is not even the best of the Blacks. His older brother, Byron, also a former USC star, is, with a No. 71 ranking. While Wayne teams with Byron to make up the Zimbabwe Davis Cup team that will play the United States--namely Sampras and Andre Agassi--early next month, Wayne’s individual fortunes on the pro tour have been marginal. He spent much of last year playing in Challenger events and he barely made it into the main draw here, surviving from a set and a break down in the second round of qualifying.

While it is true that the road to any major title is frequently fraught with potholes, it was hard to see this major bump coming for Sampras, especially since he has been playing solidly, if not spectacularly, and especially since few mortals can even come close to touching his serve on a surface here that is so slick it shines.

Perhaps the curse of Blackbutt is real after all. That is the tiny town of 800 in Queensland, Australia, where Roy Emerson grew up and where the populace, to this day, keeps watch on the old court he grew up on--”Don’t go on it. Lots of brown snakes,” Emerson says. Some townsfolk have a curse on anybody who might be so brash as to attempt to top Emerson’s mark of 12 Grand Slam events won. Sampras, of course, currently shares that record.

Whatever it was, Sampras was dead and gone, history. He looked so out of place, so off stride and out of sorts, that this comeback, without meaning to be sacrilegious, was a tennis resurrection.

“I just couldn’t find my range,” he said afterward.

Nor his forehand, backhand, return of serve, first volley, second volley, cross-court or down-the-line shots.

He did, however, have his serve, a handy thing to carry around when all else is failing. Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the defending champion and No. 2-seeded player here, puts a player like Sampras in the category of a “one-shot player.” And he says it with respect, not out of criticism. His context is that here, in conditions most of the players, including Sampras, are now calling faster than the grass of Wimbledon, it is a great thing to have a great serve.

“It saved me,” Sampras said. And that was before he was told he had hit 36 aces. “I don’t think I’ve ever hit that many,” he said.

Interestingly, this marked the eighth time that Sampras has won in five sets at the Australian, in eight tries.

“I take great pride in myself that I can fight through to the end,” he said, admitting that he spent much of the match trying to figure out what to do and fighting off frustration. “I still have to remember who I am, that I have one of the best serve-and-volley games in the world.”

The match turned on Sampras in the first-set tiebreaker.

Black had set points at 6-4 and 6-5, and again at 8-7 before finally getting it with a winning forehand at 10-9. Sampras had two set points himself, and each time Black escaped by a fraction of an inch. At 7-6, Black’s second serve appeared long, but there was no call and Sampras eventually hit a forehand long. Then at 9-8, Black hit a volley that apparently just caught the back edge of the baseline and Sampras’ ensuing lob was put away by Black.

Black ran through a stunned Sampras in 22 minutes to take the second set, then hung on until Sampras got to a break point with Black serving at 3-4 and took care of business with a deep approach shot and a huge overhead.

It took Sampras all the way until Black’s 5-5 service game to get the match back to two sets all, breaking with a soft volley and then serving it out.

In the final set, Sampras, finally starting to keep the ball in the court and construct some points, broke on a shot Black couldn’t handle at his feet at the net. Sampras’ service game at 4-3 took 43 seconds and included two aces and a huge service winner.

And with Sampras in position to serve it out, Black--nor just about anybody else other than Andre Agassi--had little chance to rally.

“There were periods, even a couple of sets, where I couldn’t even touch his serve,” Black said. “You end up just guessing, and I guessed wrong enough to finally lose.”

Sampras was asked, had this match been in the Davis Cup, what his new captain, John McEnroe, might have said to him during a break.

“He would probably say,” Sampras said, “ ‘You are playing like the pits of the world.’ ”