Pete Sampras begins a march on history with a
minimum of fuss<br>Wimbledon 2000: special
report<br><br>Frank Keating at Wimbledon<br>Tuesday June 27,
2000<br><br>Pete Sampras began his assault on history yesterday
with a muted,<br>reserved, even shy, first-round
defeat of a game Wimbledon debutant<br>from Prague Jiri
Vanek by 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.<br>Last year the American
posted a sixth Wimbledon title, a record for<br>the last
century, and another championship victory in 12 days'
time<br>would overtake Roy Emerson's long- standing dozen grand
slam titles.<br>But this was no imposing and warlike
emperor clang- ing on the gates<br>of destiny
yesterday.<br><br>Under a pewtery London sky no colourful standards nor
garlands<br>fluttered as Sampras tiptoed gingerly into the campaign by
opening<br>his defence, as the custom has it "at precisely 2pm"
on the opening<br>afternoon. This was a record
seventh time he had begun proceedings<br>and never could
he have done so with less fuss or
noise.<br><br>"Sure, Centre Court is a comfortable surrounding for me.
But nobody<br>'plays in' Centre Court beforehand, so
it is always green and greasy<br>to begin with, so
it was tough moving out there, you couldn't
push<br>yourself."<br><br>Nevertheless, all round, he added ominously: "My
fitness levels
are<br>fine, my muscles are loose, and my game is in pretty
good shape." The<br>Centre Court throng was as muted
as the challenge provided by the<br>tall, blond
Czech; the champion at least had an amiable
first-up<br>sparring session.<br><br>Nor could the tabloids wrong-foot
Sampras, newly engaged to the<br>Hollywood film actress
Bridgette Wilson - the player's agent, by all<br>accounts,
did the telephoning for the couple's first
date.<br><br>"We are told you made a very romantic proposal on one
knee, Pete?"<br>was one line of questioning. "Sure,
romantic, you know me," smiled<br>Sampras, "so I'm not such
a boring person after all, eh?" He said<br>that,
although he hopes to play three or four more years, "one
more<br>Wimbledon win and I'll be ready to begin this new crucial
chapter in<br>my life".<br><br>In yesterday's murk there
was scarcely a bare outline of the Sampras<br>we last
saw in this same amphitheatre 12 days less than 12
months ago<br>when he lit a blaze of fiery bonfires all
over the patch to dispatch<br>Andre Agassi in straight
sets - a breathtaking head-to-head in which<br>Agassi
as well was at his most voluptuous in his
stroke-making.<br><br>That victory, Sampras destroying Agassi 6-4, 6-3, 7-5,
was like<br>consuming a year's supply of champagne in
a couple of hours and no<br>three-set win in tennis
history could have been more competitively
or<br>ferociously fought. It was Hagler v Hearns, that bloodthirsty
toe-to-<br>toe three-round prize fight epic of a couple of
decades ago.<br><br>By comparison to that wham-bam
yesterday's return to the same green<br>cockpit by Sampras
resembled a delicate little Jane Austen soft-shoed<br>line
dance in the Bath Assembly Rooms.<br><br>Sampras served
15 aces, and even those seemed at half speed, and
got<br>70% of his returns in court. Vanek, meanwhile,
managed respectively<br>five and 40%. And that was about
it.