That’s Pete Being Pete

Pedestrian against Julien Boutter, passable against Andre Sa, Pete Sampras on Saturday finally made a persuasive case for his survival in the Group of Death at the U.S. Open.

Sampras served 10 aces, had only two double faults and never faced a break point against Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in the third round, winning, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, in 1 hour 29 minutes.

And now, back to the Group of Death. On Monday, the 10th-seeded Sampras, a four-time champion, will play No. 6 Patrick Rafter, a two-time Open champion from Australia. In another match, No. 2 Andre Agassi, also a two-time champion, will face No. 13 Roger Federer of Switzerland.

These are fourth-round matches.

No misprint.

Sampras and Rafter met in this event in the semifinals in 1998, and Rafter won. Agassi has a Grand Slam title this year, the Australian Open, and Federer, who is making his first fourth-round appearance at the Open, made his name by taking out Sampras at Wimbledon.

“It should be a great match,” Rafter said. “I think John [McEnroe] has been up in the booth talking up the match, even when the draw came out.

“You don’t want to meet Pete at all, but that’s the way it is. He’s going to be out here trying to kill me and I’ll be trying to do it back to him.”

Rafter was like a guest on a late-night talk show in the interview room. He was funny, calling Sampras a “hairy fella.” Attempting to deflect questions about Lleyton Hewitt, he refused to talk about occasional problems between players on the men’s tour. Then Rafter relented.

“I wanted to beat the ... out of [Jeff] Tarango a couple of times,” he said, laughing. “I wanted to go but he didn’t want to. So that was it.”

Rafter noticed that the TV commentators were rough on Sampras during the first set of his match, and later jumped on the bandwagon.

“I’m going to have to treat the match like he’s still the No. 1 player in the world,” Rafter said. “It’s interesting to listen to the commentary during his matches. In the first set, it was how old he was, how bad his backhand was, how bad all these things were. All of a sudden, at the end, he’s the greatest player again. He was a great athlete and he had a great backhand.”

In addition to Sampras, the other three members of the quarter of the draw heavy with star power won in straight sets, setting the stage for Monday. Federer beat Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands, 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (3); Agassi defeated Ramon Delgado of Paraguay, 7-5, 7-6 (5), 6-3; and Rafter finished under the lights in chilly weather, winning, 7-6 (3), 6-2, 6-2, against Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador, losing his serve once.

Sampras, Rafter and Federer have yet to drop a set. But Rafter, quite clearly, has had the best hard-court summer campaign, reaching three consecutive finals in North America, finally winning at Indianapolis.

“I want to keep it going, ride the wave as long as I can,” he said.

Slowly, Sampras has been finding his range and his confidence is growing with each match.

“It helps winning 3-2-2 against a good player,” Sampras said. “I was happy the way I adjusted my game today and realized how windy it was. I needed to come in a lot more.”

Though the names are less vaunted in the upper quarter of his half of the draw, Sampras is not dwelling on the quirky nature of this particular matchup.

“It’s just the luck of the draw,” he said. “I was going to play someone that was in the top eight, and Pat is the man. He’s probably the hottest player coming into this year’s Open. To play him early on is pretty unusual.

“The match, I think we’re both looking forward to. It will be a good atmosphere out there. He beat me the last time we were out there on that court. So he’s a great athlete, a great competitor, and it should be a good match.”

There was one upset on the men’s side and that might be something of a push if you know something about the history behind the match between No. 9 Tim Henman of Great Britain and Xavier Malisse of Belgium.

Call it the Felgate Factor.

David Felgate had coached Henman for nine years and they split, amicably, earlier this year, shortly before the French Open. Henman did not have a coach at Wimbledon and nearly reached the final, losing to Goran Ivanisevic in the semifinals.

Malisse hired Felgate, and Henman joined forces with Larry Stefanki for the hard-court season. The match was bound to be difficult for all concerned and it went the limit as Malisse defeated Henman, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, in 3 hours 47 minutes.

The women’s side remained predictable. No 2 Jennifer Capriati fell behind in both sets against Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain but prevailed, 6-4, 6-4. Also advancing was defending champion and No. 4 Venus Williams, No. 5 Kim Clijsters of Belgium, No. 8 Amelie Mauresmo of France, No. 9 Nathalie Tauziat of France and No. 11 Elena Dementieva of Russia.

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