Despite being humiliated in his second consecutive U.S. Open Final, despite not having won a tournament in his last 18 events, despite failing to win one Grand Slam in a year for the first time since 1992, Pete Sampras still believes he’s got another major championship in his future.
Sampras, angered at the recent retirement speculation, said he’s looking forward to 2002 following his 7-6 (7-4), 6-1, 6-1 loss to Aussie upstart Lleyton Hewitt in yesterday’s Open Final.
“I think I’ve proven this week I can still win Slams,” said Sampras. “There’s no doubt in my mind. There’s always going to be younger, stronger, quicker players in all sports. As you get older, it gets more difficult. But my game is still there. Unfortunately, I ran into two players – one in Safin last year and Hewitt – who played about as well as they played throughout the whole tournament. They saved it for me.”
Sampras’ run was remarkable in that he beat three former Open champions – Patrick Rafter, Andre Agassi and Safin – in succession to get to The Finals. But the bottom line is Sampras is still stuck on his record 13 Grand Slam titles, still stuck on four Open titles. He hasn’t won here since 1996.
“I was hoping a little bit of destiny might have come through for me here,” Sampras said. “It was a tough road, but a good road and a disappointing finish.”
“I have mixed emotions,” the L.A. tennis legend added. “I beat some great players along the way. But to get to this point and not get the grand prize at the end is a little deflating. I don’t think [the draw] had any bearing on today’s match. [Hewitt] was just too good.
“This is probably [hurts] more [than last year] because I worked so hard to get here,” Sampras added. “I’m sure as time goes by, I’ll reflect about what I did here, but only one name gets on that trophy and it’s not mine, so that’s the harsh reality of it.”
Some among the tennis literati won’t anoint Sampras the greatest player of all time despite his record 13 Slams because he’s never won on clay at the French Open. While his Agassi all-tiebreaker epic in the quarterfinals will help his legend, Sampras’ failure to compete against Hewitt won’t quiet the critics.
“[The Agassi] match people will talk about in tennis forever, it was a a great moment for me, for tennis but it would have been sweeter if I won the title and that match,” Sampras said.
