Monday, August 16, 1999
How hard is Pete's serve? Check strings
Patrick Rafter carries a racket with broken strings from the court.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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Pete Sampras doesn't know his own strength. He couldn't. He couldn't imagine how intimidating he is without standing on the opposite baseline, contemplating the Sampras serve.
He couldn't know the unholy terror of trying to contend with topspin at 133 mph, or the chilling sensation of having somebody's shot turn your strings to spaghetti. No other tennis player defeats or demoralizes so many opponents. Pete Sampras couldn't possibly comprehend his power unless he got himself cloned.
“I felt intimidated on his serve the whole time,” Patrick Rafter said Sunday. “Even when I was there, it was very difficult to get back.”
Rafter is the world's fourth-ranked player and a two-time U.S. Open Champion, but he might as well have been wielding a ping pong paddle on the ATP Championships springy Stadium Court. Sampras claimed a 7-6, 6-3 victory, his third career ATP title and the singular distinction of hitting a serve so hard that it sailed clean through his rival's racket.
Sampras was serving with a 3-2 lead in the first-set tiebreaker when he shredded Rafter's thin, 17-gauge strings on an otherwise faulty serve that was measured at 128 mph. Professional tennis players break strings all the time — Sampras typically breaks two or three strings per match — but Alex Bullock of Jay's Custom Stringing said it was the first time anyone could recall a shot breaking through to the other side of the racket.
“When you have big servers and you mishit a return, you are at great risk of breaking a string,” said Nate Ferguson, Sampras' racket specialist. “But I've never seen it go through the string bed before.
“It sounded like a broken racket. But when he came over for a new racket, four (broken) strings were visible — just enough for the ball to speed through. What does that tell you? Pete comes with a lot of heat.”
Ferguson has seen enough of Sampras that he shouldn't be surprised by much anymore.
But this was something new, something out of a Popeye cartoon or a Nike commercial. It was as vivid a show of strength as tennis has produced since Boris Becker was a bachelor.
“That doesn't happen very often,” Sampras said. “I can't remember that happening. (But) It was more important I got a first serve out of it, which was nice.”
Leave it to Sampras to look at the profound and see the pragmatic. He is the best player of his time by as big a margin as Bill Tilden or Bjorn Borg, but he leaves the hype to Andre Agassi. Sampras saw Rafter's broken racket not as a symbol of his own supremacy but as a reprieve for a faulty first serve. Because Rafter was obliged to replace his racket, Sampras was able to serve again without fear of a double fault.
He went on to win the point, and then smoked a 133 mph ace past Rafter, as if for emphasis. Rafter would rally to lead the tiebreaker, 7-6, but then failed to return Sampras serves of 116 and 131 mph.
When Sampras was able to break Rafter's serve in the second set, the outcome became inevitable. Those who would break Sampras' serve depend primarily on double faults.
“The amazing part of it is the way Pete hits his serve,” Ferguson said. “He plays with a small-headed racket — 85 square inches; the tightest tension (usually around 75 pounds) and the heaviest racket. How he generates that pace is beyond me. I've never faced him, but to stand at the baseline I'd have to guess which way he's going. Half the time, he'd have a clean ace, and the rest of the time I would be dodging the ball.”
Sampras' serve is not the fastest on record. Gary Rusedski's reached 149 mph last year at Indian Wells, Calif. But no other player hits his spots so consistently with so much steam. Imagine Greg Maddux with Randy Johnson's fastball.
“It was a bit annoying,” Rafter said of Sampras' breakthrough serve. “I looked at it and I just thought, "That's pretty indicative of the way he's serving.'”
E-mail: tsullivan@enquirer.com.
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