U.S. Men’s Tennis Comes Into Focus on Court 18

I went to Court 18 on Monday to see the player who last year was called the future of U.S. men’s tennis by no less an expert than Pete Sampras.

Sampras since has revised his forecast, but apparently not everyone got the word.

When I arrived, I found the stadium filled with spectators. I had to stand outside the walls, which, fortunately for me and others, were slatted so that we could at least glimpse the action. It was like watching through Levolor blinds.

As it turned out, there was nothing spectacular to see. But the crowd reaction from inside bordered at times on hysteria, primarily because of the presence of dozens of teenage girls. It was as if they were at a Travis concert. (For those of you mired in a past decade, Travis is a popular rock band in England).

I’m guessing these young fans weren’t reacting as much to Jan-Michael Gambill’s tennis as they were to his topless photograph in the Sunday Express with a caption identifying him as “Tennis’ Adonis.”

If Madison Avenue invented a tennis player, Gambill would be the prototype. He was among People magazine’s list of the 50 most beautiful people in the world in 2000, has a contract with the Ford Modeling Agency, is known as “Hollywood” to the other players on the tour, funds endangered jungle cats at the Cat Tales Zoological Park in his hometown of Colbert, Wash., and collects sports cars. Jaguars, naturally.

None of this, unfortunately for him and the future of U.S. tennis, has meant anything on the court lately.

When he lost Monday in five sets to the extremely un-Hollywood Chris Woodruff of Knoxville, Tenn., it was the third time in three Grand Slam tournaments this year that Gambill has fallen in the first round.

“This is the most devastating loss I’ve ever had,” he said. “This is as bad as it gets. I’d like to go break every racket in my bag. I’m not going to do that, but that would make me feel better.”

It has to be hard, at 24, to wonder if the future is already running out on you.

His credibility might be more suspect than it was last year, but Sampras now says the future of U.S. men’s tennis is Andy Roddick.

A couple of hours after Gambill’s loss, I was back at Court 18 to see Roddick play Ivo Heuberger of Switzerland. The stadium wasn’t full--the teenage girls had left, probably because it was nearing nightfall when the third set began--but it was clear that Roddick already has a following.

Some tennis fans thought it was important to be there for Roddick’s first match at Wimbledon, his first victory, just as they no doubt would like to have been there for Sampras’ first victory on the hallowed grass courts 10 years ago, when he was 19. Sampras would advance to the semifinals the next year and win it for the first time two years later.

There are several terrific young players who are ready to break through. Russia’s Marat Safin, 21, already did, winning last year’s U.S. Open. Others to watch are Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt, 20; Switzerland’s Roger Federer, 19; Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero, 21; and France’s Arnaud Clement, 23. Experts have added Roddick, 18, to that list.

He is a native Nebraskan who moved to Texas, then to Florida for tennis. He is still too boyish to be considered one of the beautiful people, and thankfully too scruffy for the Ford Modeling Agency. But he’s fun to watch play and probably will be considered charismatic some day.

He doesn’t yell at umpires, only at himself, when things aren’t going well.

“Dead meat,” seemed to be his favorite self-inflicted insult Monday in a three-set victory over Heuberger.

Other players call him “A-Rod,” which is easy enough for U.S. sports fans to remember. He also is known as “Heavy Metal” because of his scorching serves. Once timed at 141 mph, he hit 133 mph Monday on a first serve, 113 mph on a second serve. Spectators at the end of the court flinched a few times when his serves hit in front of them.

“I just don’t really pay too much attention to it,” he said of the hype surrounding him. “If you make something a big deal, then it’s a big deal. If you kind of treat it laid-back, kind of go with the flow, it’s not really too much.”

Besides, who knows what tomorrow will bring? England’s Tim Henman doesn’t think as much of Roddick’s future as Sampras does.

“He’s 18 and playing without fear,” Henman said. “The way he hits his serve, his shoulder is going to drop off. He hits it so hard, but he is probably not physically matured.”

Long before Roddick played, Sampras had finished his day’s work on Center Court.

He wasn’t as good as he will have to be later in the tournament, but he was as good as he had to be in a three-set victory over Francisco Clavet.

In a TV interview last week with friend and former competitor Jim Courier, Sampras, 29, said: “In a perfect world, I’d love to play my last match here this year, win it and call it a career. But who knows about the future? I don’t even know . . . I don’t have an exact time in my mind. It could be this year, it could be some time way ahead.”

One of the Sunday sports sections here ran with the story, reporting Sampras’ impending retirement.

But Sampras said Monday that the notion he is contemplating quitting is “totally false.”

“To end my career, sure, I’d love to go out there and win it one last time--this year, next year, five years from now. I plan on coming back for many years.”

Who knows? Maybe he is the future of U.S. men’s tennis.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at randy.harvey@latimes.com