Georgia Fatwood

Some of you may have seen Gustavo Kuerten's recent remarks on Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. In case you haven't, Kuerten apparently said Sampras was "much better' than The Mighty Fed. Drawing an interesting comparison to F-1 car racing, a sport I know absolutely nothing about (except that its most gifted practitioners party-hearty in places like Monte Carlo), Kuerten told Brazil's TV Globo that TMF moved into the vacuum left by Sampras much like Michael Shumacher took advantage of Ayrton Senna's tragic death to establish his pre-eminence.

My reaction to this is: Everyone's entitled to his or her opinion, but not his own facts, and that "better than" is too loose a construction to mean a great deal, although it's a Georgia Fatwood-grade form of kindling with which to start a whale of a firestorm at this particular cave.

I cite the Kuerten quote because just the other day I had an email from tennis journalist Dan C. Weil, a frequent contributor to Tennis, containing some interesting thoughts on the Sampras-Federer subject. Here's what Dan wrote:

People generally seem to agree that Fed has more all around game than Sampras. I'm not so sure that's true, though obviously he plays better on clay than Sampras. Henman pointed out recently that Sampras could afford to be more aggressive than Fed cuz the balls and courts were faster then. Perhaps if Sampras was of Fed's generation, he would play a more baseline-oriented game himself.

People seem to forget how good Sampras' ground strokes were. At the end of his career he often just chipped the backhand deep and came in off of it. But early in his career, I think his backhand was better than Fed's. He basically won the US Open final in '95 w/a backhand that gave him the first set over Agassi and broke Agassi's will. Federer may move better at the baseline, but it's not as if Sampras was slow back there.

And there is no question that Sampras' volley and movement at the net were better than Federer -- I think by a significant margin. Of course if Fed was part of Sampras' generation, w/faster courts and balls, perhaps his net game would be more developed.

If they actually played each other w/both at their peak, assuming this is Fed's peak now, on a medium-speed hard court, I think Sampras wins. I don't think Fed could consistently pass him.

And one tangential point -- if you put Sampras at his best against Nadal at his current level of play, I think Sampras destroys him on a hard court -- any speed. Sampras' net game would totally nullify Nadal's forehand, and he wlouldn't have the time to set up that way he does against Fed. . .

Now there's some fighting words for fans of both TMF and Jet Boy!

The other day, after I mentioned that I was contemplating writing a Federer-Sampras post, we got one of those rolls eyes comments from Heidi, who's apparently sick of the comparisons, as well as the GOAT discussion. I had to laugh when I read that, but this really is a pretty good time to probe the comparison, given the kind of year TMF is having -  hat tip to Jon Wertheim (lead item).

My background in this: When I first really watched Pete Sampras, at the 1989 U.S. Open, the impact was profound, and I vividly remember exactly what I thought: This is what Pancho Gonzalez (who was often described as "feline" for the languid, slinky, deceptive way he generated his power) must have looked like as a kid. Next thought: Having spent so many years watching Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors in action, I felt like I was getting a hand-delivered tutorial by Plato: This is what playing tennis is supposed to look like.

Now don't nobody get your shorts in a bunch here: This doesn't mean Sampras was better than his immediate predecessors -  or successors. It's just that he played an elegant, classic, explosive game on a foundation of velvet.

Borg, by contrast, was a hockey player gone astray - great legs and an unbelievable slapshot off either wing; McEnroe, the tennis version of a cubist painting (Nude Descending a Staircase, anyone?). Connors was feral, with more conspicuously flawed elements in his serve than many journeymen had in their entire games.

Gosh, I thought, it's good to see a tennis player again. I'd almost forgotten what one looked like!

When I first watched TMF, at the Orange Bowl in 1998 (he waxed Guillermo Coria, who would go on to be tennis's lost soul, in the final), I was not similarly moved - but not for the reasons you might think.

It was just that he was not nearly as mature as Sampras, nor as downright imposing. If you look at the trouble TMF had getting sufficient traction at Grand Slams early in his career, you'll see it was for two reasons: lack of emotional and mental seasoning (guess you can say that's a thing of the past, eh?), and lack of ripeness in his game, manifesting itself in the confusion Roger often felt (and admitted to) when it came to shot selection, and playing to win points rather than to hit lovely shots during them.

Beyond that, though, Federer's game lacked the quality I'd call "heft", and if that sounds like a criticism, bear in mind that the same could be said of Rod Laver's game; if TMF or Laver were fighters, they would have been middleweights or light heavies, at best (Marat Safin, by contrast, is heavyweight all the way). I also was not sure Federer was destined to be more than just a pretty game because junior tennis has always featured wonderful ball strikers who could never quite make the transition to a pro tour populated by players who had heft - see "D" for Davis (Scott) or "P" for Parker (Al) or Perreira (Nicholas).

Now, just committing these thoughts to paper (sic) has given me a new appreciation for TMF; I doubt that any player has made a journey of comparable length of breadth from his junior identity to his professional one. Check that, I can think of one: Rod Laver.

When Laver was a youngster, he could hardly keep the ball in the court, which led the iconic Aussie coach, Harry Hopman, to remark to a skeptical onlooker: "Don't worry, all those shots are going to fall into the court one day and this kid is going to be a champion." Digression: Laver's nickname "Rocket" was initially applied as a droll appellation, for the way the scrawny little redhead hit out, spraying "rockets" all over the place. . .

The most useful method of comparison may be to focus on who the players in question most resemble in a general, para-technical sense. I would group TMF with players who knew how to make a ball talk and still won big; smooth players who knew how to offset the power of their most formidable rivals. In no particular hieirarchical order, then, TMF's next-of-kin are: Laver, Ken Rosewall, Mats Wilander, Ilie Nastase, and McEnroe - perhaps even his coach, Snoozin' Tony Roche.

By the same measure, Sampras's next-of-kin are Gonzalez, Lew Hoad, John Newcombe, Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker. I will leave the forehands and backhands to the Tribal Elders who are easily as, if not more, expert than I about such things (man, is this in Dunlop and Todd's strike zone, or what?). My own feeling is this: On most courts, the only thing that can withstand the judicious application of power by a player who has more than power in his overall arsenal, especially when it's tempered by the minimalism of a great killer instinct, is the cocktail composed of great versatility and absolute fearlessness - the kind TMF has been showing for these past few, glorious years.

It's hard to argue with - but very easy to forget - the easy power generated by the laconic Sampras. But it's also hard to argue with the facts of Federer's Grand Slam record, as well as the evidence offered up by his title-gobbling run of recent years. If these guys would be playing for your life, who would you put your money on?