Sampras Almost Caught Red-Handed on Clay

Pete Sampras got a glimpse of rock bottom Tuesday at the French Open, and it looked suspiciously familiar.

His forehand was flying long, his serve was missing and his movements were suspect. Even his champion-like aura was rubbed out by the red clay.

“Anything else?” Sampras said.

Well, yeah. Counting his mistakes could take almost as long as his 3-hour 12-minute first-round match on the show court Suzanne Lenglen, scene of many five-set disasters.

Sampras turns mortal on clay. On Tuesday, mortal would have been a step up for him. He had to save three match points to avoid the worst loss of his career to an obscure Frenchman, Cedric Kauffmann. Kauffmann, 25, who went to the University of Kentucky, had the match of his life and nearly became a Parisian hero. Eventually, though, the fifth-seeded Sampras prevailed, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 3-6, 8-6.

Sampras has made heroes of other lesser players on clay, especially at the French Open, the only Grand Slam event he has not won. But this was a decided drop in quality. Kauffmann, ranked 250th, has never won an ATP match. In fact, he lost to Gene Mayer, 6-4, 6-4, in the first round of the Waikoloa Challenger in Hawaii in January.

That’s the Gene Mayer who turned 45 in April.

“That makes me feel real good,” said Sampras, whose worst loss was to 244th-ranked Todd Woodbridge at Wimbledon in the first round in 1989.

Imagine how he would have felt had Kauffmann converted one of his two match points in the ninth game of the fifth set or the third one in the 10th game of the fifth. Sampras made good plays on all three, winning the admiration of the crowd, staving off the third one with a brave drop forehand volley.

“I didn’t lose the match,” Kauffmann said. “He won it.”

Said Sampras, “You don’t think about what he’s ranked. You think about what you’re trying to do, what your strategy is. You’re not thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’m in the fifth set against this guy.’

“You have to respect him to a certain point.”

Kauffmann earned that respect. He kept working, running and retrieving, and started believing in himself when he made a spectacular shot late in the second set when Sampras was serving.

It was the first point of the 10th game, and Kauffmann led, 5-4. Sampras smashed an overhead in close and Kauffmann guessed right and made a great pickup, whipping a forehand passing shot past Sampras.

“Normally when I give him a couple of lobs, he finishes the overhead,” Kauffmann said. “This time, he kind of didn’t. The ball was right there, and I smash it so hard. It went in the court. When I won the second point to make it 0-30, I thought I could break him, and I get pumped.”

The crowd was energized and Sampras was subtly deflated. Kauffmann broke him at 30 with a forehand return winner, passing the net-rushing Sampras, and took the second set, 6-4.

“It was a point I should have won,” said Sampras, who had 14 aces, 10 double faults and 86 unforced errors.

“Changed the whole momentum. The crowd got into it. It was really a crucial time in the match.”

Kauffmann said the shot gave him the necessary confidence to compete against Sampras. He’d gone to bed Monday night feeling anxious.

“I go, ‘I hope I don’t look that bad on the court,’ ” Kauffmann said. “You’re kind of scared. During the warmup, for five minutes, it was kind of blurry, the stadium, because I usually see [Sampras] on TV. I thought it was still a TV screen. But when I won my first service game, I got settled down and concentrated on the match. I had a great time out there. Good memories.”

The French supporters came around by the end, appreciating Sampras’ effort. Now 29, he is admired in Paris and the fans apparently want to see him make one more decent run at the title before he retires.

He reached the semifinals in 1996 and has not gone past the third round since. Last year, he lost to Mark Philippoussis in five sets in the first round.

His next test will be against Spaniard Galo Blano, and looming well down the road is 1999 champion, third-seeded Andre Agassi. In the first round, Agassi defeated Thomas Johansson of Sweden, 6-2, 6-3, 7-6 (5), in 1 hour 50 minutes.

No one was talking about Blano or Agassi or anyone else, though, after Sampras’ close call. The focus was still on the light-haired Kauffmann, who, some say, looks a little like the retired Boris Becker.

“He looked like a little rabbit to me,” Sampras said. “He would just not give up. I’d never seen him before.”

Sampras thought about it for a moment and looked amused, saying: “At some point, I wish I was playing Boris on clay today.”