Friday, July 18, 2003 U.S. Open Preview - 2003 Pete Sampras raised his right arm for a final time. His racket sought and found the yellow fuzzy ball, sending it speeding and spinning toward Andre Agassi. Gliding behind his serve, Pete cut off Andre's return with a conclusive backhand volley - and the 2002 U,S. Open was over. Had we regrettably seen the last of Silky Sampras, the great five-time champion? It's up to him, of course, but this much is sure: he won't defend his title in this, the Silver Anniversary year of Flushing Meadow. Most unusual. Thirty-two years have passed since a champion sat out the dance the following year. That abstainer was the mini-miracle-worker, 5-foot-7 inch Aussie Ken Rosewall, who was 35 when he won the 1970 championship over countryman Tony Roche on the lawns of the West Side Tennis Club, up the street at Forest Hills. Kenny, also the victor in 1956, just didn't feel like showing up in 1971. Yet at 39 he resumed his familiar Doomsday Stroking Machine identity as finalist to 1974 champ Jimmy Connors. Connors was also in on the farewell to Forest Hills, beaten on clay by Argentine Guillermo Vilas in the 1977 final that wrapped up 60 years of the men's Championships at that locale. Whereupon the progressive vision of determined USTA President W.E. (Slew) remarkably took shape in 1978 as a pleasure parlor of mean green slabs in Flushing. This year Rosewall, Connors, Vilas and Sampras have decided to leave this wide-open Open open to other folks, though not necessarily unrecognizable ones. Does the name Agassi, 33 years of age and taking part in his 18th Open, ring a gong? It should because Andre Kirk Agassi is the only two-time champ (as well as five-time final rounder) in the mix. Besides, he gets inimitable inspiration from his roommate, five-time champ Steffi Graf. That ought to be worth a needed point here and there. Not to mention that Andre is back on his favorite footing, a hard court, similar to the surface on which he won the first of the year's majors, the Australian Open, his fourth title Down Under. As long ago as 1990 Andre crashed his first U.S. final, losing to Sampras. He won in 1994, lost the title in the 1995 final to Sampras, won again in 1999, and was outdone by Sampras a year ago. We may miss Pete, but I suspect that Andre doesn't. Even without Pete, the mix is stunning this time, sprinkled with such upper-class names as Agassi, Ferrero, Federer, Hewitt, Kuerten, Safin, Roddick, Srichaphan, Philippoussis, Schuettler, Verkerk, El Aynaoui, Schalken, Moya, Grosjean, Novak, . To warrant consideration as a great champion, a guy has to show that he can repeat, and can't be put down as a one-title wonder. That's the proposition for those young brilliants, Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin. They made their reputations early, at the expense of the monumental Sampras, sort of like Pat Garrett gunning down Billy the Kid in the days of the Wild West. In 2000 Safin, the wild (though genial) Russian, bestrode the Meadow, a 20-year-old colossus, the most imposing physically of all U.S. champs at 6-4 and 205 pounds. Dynamite in every department, he took Pete apart in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. A year later, another 20-year-old, an Aussie totally different from his tribe's 10 U.S. championship predecessors, proved that big wasn't always best. He was 5-10 Hewitt, who stomped Sampras just as thoroughly, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1, 6-1. But he did it by turning his back on his Australian heritage, triumphing from the back court with menacing groundstrokes. Those 10 prior Aussies who had reaped 16 titles in New York for their underpopulated and overachieving island - from Frank Sedgman, 1951-52, through such as Rosewall, Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and John Newcombe to Patrick Rafter, 1997-98 - did it by full-speed-ahead charging the net. It was The Australian Approach - until Hewitt. Lleyton actually won Wimbledon last year, an unrepentant Antipodean heretic who played not one serve-and-volley point. "I know some of the older guys, that I respect, thought I should serve-and-volley once in a while," Hewitt says. "And it did cross my mind in the final [over Argentine David Nalbandian], but…" But he did it his way, and feels he can do here it again. Why not? Wasn't he world's youngest ever No. 1 after grabbing this title, a position he has held for most two years? Bedeviled by injuries, Safin hasn't done as well since his lone major conquest. Nevertheless, a man of his quickness and ball-striking talents ought to bloom again, and add to his (apparently therapeutic) racket-smashing record. Obviously the guy under closest scrutiny will be the Basel- Dazzle, Roger Federer, as sharp - and with as many blades -- as a Swiss Army knife from his homeland. With as sensational a Wimbledon performance as anyone can remember (moreover against the quality job of Aussie Mark Philippoussis), Federer stamped himself, at merely 21, as a guy who would fit into No. 1 as handsomely as Venus does her smocks. Displaying a splendid aptitude for shotmaking of every nature, Roger (turned 22 Aug. 8) permitted Andy Roddick and Philippoussis, in the semis and final, zero peeks at a break point, and looked born both to the baseline and the net. Serving, he painted more lines than a highway worker. Federer made it to the quarter-finals last year, falling to the explosive "Belarus Beast," Max Mirnyi, a constant irritant. He's had his ups and downs over an uneven first half of the year, losing in the opening round of the French to No. 88 Luis Horna, the fourth round of the Australian to Nalbandian, the Italian final to No. 47 Felix Mantilla, and blew three match points and his quarter-final match at Key Biscayne to Albert Costa, a tournament won for the fifth time by ubiquitous and eternal Agassi. Currently the king of clay, Barcelonan Juan Carlos (not to be confused with his country's King Juan Carlos) Ferrero is becoming more confident and adept in faster territory. After winning the French over the startling, serve-booming "Flaying Dutchman," Martin Verkerk, Ferrero, 23, crossed the Channel to have himself a finest Wimbledon: a fourth round loss to semifinalist Sebastien Grosjean, the fleet and pesky Frenchman. The king of clay (in exile, you might say), as the winner of three French Opens, Gustavo (Guga) Kuerten, is bigger in Brazil than coffee, and just as habit-forming as he flicks his magical shots. He's not crazy about asphalt, but has been a quarter-finalist here twice. Maybe…one of these days? Of the arriving American generation who are supposed to alleviate post Sampras/Agassi depression, the great white hot hope is Nebraska-born Andy (Ramrod) Roddick. Just turned 21, he has been reinvigorated by blasting his way into Wimbledon's final four after vanishing from the French at the starting gate, vaporized by No. 67 Sargis Sargsian, the pride of Armenia. It was particularly painful because Andy had launched the campaign so promisingly at the Australian, landing in the semis with a spectacular 5-hour, match point-rescuing win over the exciting 6-4 Moroccan, Younes El Aynaoui, conqueror of Hewitt. But Andy had no more left after the 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 6-4, 21-19, victory that commenced on a Wednesday night and ended early the next morning. He was hurting, tendinitis of the right wrist, and no match for the fast and industrious German retriever, Rainer Schuettler, known admiringly by compatriots as an "unruheshtifter" - a troublemaker. Following the French, bolstered immediately by a new coach, Brad Gilbert, Roddick rebounded on London grass by beating Agassi and Grosjean for the Queen's Club title prior to Wimbledon. Gilbert, who spent seven successful years as Agassi's tutor, was gratified in his first start as Andy's advisor by the 149 MPH missile his pupil fired at former pupil Agassi. (Andre did return it!) That tied the velocity record set by Greg Rusedski five years ago. In a second round clash of those swifties at Wimbledon, Roddick beat Rusedski in straight sets, a slick demonstration avenging his shellacking by the Anglo-Canadian in 2002. If you're across the net from Andy those serves come at you looking like kernels of corn from his native state, and make you feel as crumbly as cornbread. His stance at the Open has been, "You gotta beat me to win the title!" - and that's what Hewitt and Sampras did in successive quarter-finals. If Andy makes it all the way this time he'll be the youngest American champ since 19-year-old Sampras in 1990. The rest of the young American gang are headed by Connecticut Yankee James Blake, 23, who has battled Hewitt vainly through five sets the last two years, and worked his way away from college - Harvard - to assume a U.S. Davis Cup role. Minnesotan Mardy Fish, 22, Californian Taylor Dent, 23, Georgians Robby Ginepri and Brian Vahaly, 24 and Washingtonian Jan-Michael Gambill could have some surprises up their non-sleeves. Because they are quick-court lovers with volleys to spare, the Brits Rusedski (finalist here to Patrick Rafter in 1997), and the last known English-born tennis player, Tim Henman, might cause King George III to stir in his grave. However, the last English winner in this country doesn't go back quite that far. He was Fred Perry in 1936. Another loose-cannon ex-finalist in the crowd, exuding massive firepower, is 6-foot-4 Mark Philippoussis. Mark, 26, who has sworn off high life to rejuvenate his tennis life - stalled by three knee surgeries and some wheelchair time -- might well have been Wimbledon champion if Federer had been anything short of perfection. A loser of the Meadow's 1998 title bout to countryman Rafter, Mark swatted 46 aces past the best returner extant, Agassi, equaling the Wimbledon record, on his way to Federer. Philippoussis showed that he's more than an-ace-and-a-prayer with an array of groundies and volleys, too. "The King and I" has held up well as a Broadway musical and Hollywood film. Maybe someday a producer in Thailand will put together a movie called "The King Is I" about the life and times of the country's paragon, Paradorn Srichaphan. When his matches are on TV everybody in Bangkok stays at home to watch, momentarily decreasing the city's traffic problems. As he keeps getting better, a contender, the streets of his hometown may be so deserted the traffic cops will feel lonely. The same could be said of Mallorcans as the Spanish islanders follow the fortunes of their muscular boy, Carlos (Charlie) Moya, a semifinalist in 1998, the year he won the French Open. Or Santiagoans in following their Chilean powerhouse, 23-year-old Fernando Gonzalez, a quarter-finalist a year ago. Fernando hits balls so hard that nearby eardrums are threatened. Although both stand 6-3, Sjeng Schalken, a Netherlander, and Jiri Novak, a Czech, sneak up, and do a number before you notice it. Anybody who saw Novak dismember Sampras in a critical Davis Cup joust in Los Angeles three years ago, knows he's dangerous. As is Schalken, who came close to beating Hewitt in the Wimbledon quarters last year, and gave Sampras a fight in the Open semis. Neither 17-year-old Spanish lefty Rafael Nadal nor venerable 33-year-old Todd Martin is going to win. Still, take a look at them. Nadal, who could be a matinee idol, is future book stuff. For 6-foot-6 American Martin, the future is only his next match, but he's a textbook in short pants, a primer on how the game is played with wisdom and verve, a man of countless adventures in the Meadow such as hounding Agassi in the 5-set 1999 final. Also 19-year-old Mario Ancic, 6-4, out of Split, Croatia, and growing into a worthy successor to fellow townsman Goran Ivanisevic. And from the same troubled territory, 6-5 Bosnian Amer Delic. Delic not only won the National Intercollegiate singles title for Illinois this year, but led the Illini to the team title, too, and is soon to be a U.S. citizen. The throne is empty. His highness Pete has abdicated and the two week bash-and-crash is on to determine a successor -- the Silver Anniversary Monarch of the Meadow. <<<Back