Hero today, gone tomorrow It's been a decade since the champion has gone on to win the U.S. Open BY NEIL SCHMIDT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Don't call it a jinx. Or a hex.
After winning the ATP Championship, Pete Sampras lost to Patrick Rafter in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open.
(AP photo)
| ZOOM |But it's puzzling: In the last decade, every winner of the Great American Insurance ATP Championship -- the premier hardcourt tournament leading up to the U.S. Open -- has struck out at Flushing Meadows.
"It's just a stupid stat," 1989 ATP champ Brad Gilbert says.
Coincidence or not, it's worth a look.
The ATP and the Open are played within three weeks of each other, on the same surface, usually with all the same names competing. But just twice in the 19 years since the ATP moved to Mason -- never since 1988 -- has the same racket been raised after the last point in both cities.
It's easiest to first rule out what it's not: a lack of talent here.
In ascending to "Super Nine" status -- assuring loaded fields each year -- the ATP has fielded all top-10 finals in 12 of the past 13 years. The only exception was the 1992 title match, when runner-up Ivan Lendl ranked 11th.
Each winner here the past 18 years has qualified for the ATP Tour's eight-player World Championship (known in the 1980s as the Masters).
Surprise champions, here or in New York, remain rare. With the exceptions of an upset-laden Open last year -- 13th-seeded Patrick Rafter beat unseeded Greg Rusedski in the finals -- and Guy Forget's victory here in 1991 -- the foursome of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Michael Chang and Stefan Edberg has won all the ATP and Open titles this decade.
FLUSHED OUT IN FLUSHING MEADOWS Year ATP winner fared in Open Open winner fared at ATP 1997 Pete Sampras lost round of 16 Pat Rafter lost quarterfinals 1996 Andre Agassi lost semifinals Pete Sampras lost semifinals 1995 Andre Agassi lost final Pete Sampras lost quarterfinals 1994 Michael Chang lost round of 16 Andre Agassi DNP 1993 Michael Chang lost quarterfinals Pete Sampras lost semifinals 1992 Pete Sampras lost final Stefan Edberg lost semifinals 1991 Guy Forget lost before R16 Stefan Edberg lost quarterfinals 1990 Stefan Edberg lost 1st round Pete Sampras lost Round of 16 1989 Brad Gilbert lost 1st round Boris Becker lost semifinals 1988 Mats Wilander won Open 1987 Stefan Edberg lost semifinals Ivan Lendl DNP 1986 Mats Wilander lost round of 16 Ivan Lendl DNP 1985 Boris Becker lost round of 16 Ivan Lendl DNP 1984 Mats Wilander lost quarterfinals John McEnroe DNP 1983 Mats Wilander lost quarterfinals Jimmy Connors lost semifinals 1982 Ivan Lendl lost finals Jimmy Connors lost semifinals 1981 John McEnroe won Open 1980 Harold Solomon lost round of 16 John McEnroe DNP 1979 Peter Fleming lost before R16 John McEnroe DNP Notable flameouts remain.
In 1989, Gilbert had won three straight tournaments coming into the Open but lost a first-round match to Todd Witsken. In '90, Edberg -- whose victory here made him No. 1 in the world -- was a first-round, straight-set loser there to Alexander Volkov. Forget reached only the second round in '91 after his ATP crown.
Sampras cruised through town last year without dropping a set, but got booted in the Open's round of 16 by Petr Korda.
"It's not like guys that win here don't win there (in New York)," ATP tournament director Paul Flory said. "It's just that doing both a few weeks apart -- putting together a big winning streak -- is hard to do with the depth of the game today."
Of all the reasons why the ATP-Open daily double hasn't happened since Mats Wilander did so in 1988, here's No. 1:
iParity. "The game has changed so much in the past 15 years," ESPN analyst Cliff Drysdale says. "Far more players can win a tournament now."
The 46 titles on the Tour so far this year have been spread among 31 different players. Marcelo Rios has won the most tourneys, five.
Sampras, who is ranked No. 1 and is mentioned among the greatest players of all time, has won just three events in 1998.
Seven different players have won their first titles this year: Andrea Gaudenzi (ranked No. 36), Scott Draper (46), Andrew Ilie (55), Kenneth Carlsen (69), Andrei Pavel (71), Leander Paes (103) and Lleyton Hewitt (156). Heard of any of them?
For comparison, the 67 tournaments in 1984 were won by 33 different men. John McEnroe won 10 events and went 71-2. (His only losses were in the French Open final and the ATP's first round.)
Perhaps no one will so dominate the sport again.
"Fifteen years ago, McEnroe, Lendl and Connors used to cruise into the semis every week," Gilbert says. "It's not like that anymore."
In this year's ATP, there are no players ranked lower than the 60s. (How strong is this field? The finalists in the Queen's Club tourney two months ago, Draper and Laurence Tieleman, will have to fight through the qualifier here.)
Players have turned "there are no easy matches" quotes into cliches. When Sampras loses to someone like Karim Alami -- in 1996, when Alami was ranked 200th -- they ring true.
Though the four Grand Slam events seed 16 players each, all four saw an unseeded player reach the final in 1997: Carlos Moya in Australia, Gustavo Kuerten in France, Cedric Pioline at Wimbledon and Rusedski in New York.
Kuerten became the lowest-ranked player (No. 66) to win a Slam.
"The Slams last year are proof enough: Parity is here," Drysdale says.
iThe hardcourt factor. The unforgiving surface, steamy U.S. summer and cumulative injuries can conspire against long winning streaks.
"I think there's too many tournaments -- seven weeks -- leading up (to the Open)," ESPN analyst Fred Stolle said. "Around the halfway mark, players start to get a couple of injuries. Because of the strain of playing 3-4 weeks in a row -- seven days a week, if you're doing well -- in hot conditions, it takes a toll."
On-court temperatures on the rubberized courts can exceed 125 degrees. Heat exhaustion, cramping and fatigue can get repetitive.
"It's definitely a cumulative effect by the time you get to the Open," says Tour trainer Doug Spreen, a 1988 Mariemont High grad. "There are very few guys that don't have something a little banged-up. And the weather, all those weeks in a row, can drag on players."
Since 1988, Sampras and Agassi have come closest to an ATP-Open sweep.
In winning his first ATP title in '92, Sampras cruised past Edberg 6-2, 6-3 in the semis. But a rested Edberg got revenge in the Open finals, beating Sampras 3-6, 6-4, 7-6, 6-2.
By '95, Sampras may have learned to pace himself. He lost to Agassi in the Canadian Open finals and fell to Michael Stich the next week in the ATP quarterfinals, but rallied to top Agassi 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 in the Open title match.
Agassi, then No. 1, had been riding one of the hottest streaks in memory. He had won 26 consecutive matches and was 52-2 on hardcourts entering the Open final, but admitted all that tennis caught up with him.
"It's been a long summer," he said then. "I was lacking a little strength. I was feeling my legs in the first set, and that's way too early to feel them."
Stolle had suggested Agassi take a week off in the midst of his streak, but Agassi said he didn't want to lose his touch.
Stolle had recalled 1965, when tennis was largely a two-man battle: he and Roy Emerson. Though they dominated all summer, they wore down and faded when the Open arrived, Stolle losing in the second round and Emerson in the third.
Stolle said the heat definitely was a factor. "And that's when there wasn't any depth in the game. It happens a lot more now."
iTiming. In the 1980s, the ATP was primarily held a week or two before the Open. When the Tour was formed in '90, the ATP secured its earlier spot, starting three weeks before the Open starts.
It could follow that a player winning the ATP in the '80s could carry that momentum over one week: McEnroe in '81 and Wilander in '88 did so to sweep the events. (Lendl, the Open winner in '85, '86 and '87, skipped Cincinnati all three of those years.)
Wilander, the last man to win both in the same year, loved the ATP -- winning four times in a six-year span. He blames today's players for not adjusting to the earlier date.
"I had just beaten all the top guys (in Cincinnati), and I liked the pressure of having to do it again at the Open," Wilander said. "Now, players don't take Cincinnati as serious as they probably should, since it's so far out from the Open."
It's not that players don't care. Talk to enough of them and you'll find this one of their favorite Tour stops. A $2.45 million purse is another nice lure.
It just remains to be seen how best to strike a balance between going all-out to win here and pacing one's play for the Open.
"Cincinnati doesn't have a hex," Drysdale says. "They used to say the same thing about the Queen's Club tourney until Sampras won that and Wimbledon in the same year (1995).
"Someone will win Cincinnati and the Open back-to-back. It's just very, very hard."
