If the importance of a tennis match can be measured by the number of YouTube clips it generates, the men’s final that took place 10 years ago in Key Biscayne, between Pete Sampras and Gustavo Kuerten, is up there among the all-time classics. There are at least two pages worth of videos on the site; I’m guessing you can see every point if you wished. Along the way, you can also hear Luke Jensen, the color man that day, say “pumped” and “smash and crash” and, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume, “Texas T-bone” an odd dozen times. Never thought you'd be thankful for Justin Gimelstob? You thought wrong.
Why the nostalgic love for Pete and Guga? It was a superb, chaotic, and razor-close four-setter that was decided in an overtime tiebreaker. The crowd in Miami, blending the South with the North American, produced a soccer-game atmosphere—it was always fun to watch Guga in the second, smaller stadium at Key Biscayne in those days; the green-and-gold swarmed the place. But what’s most interesting, from an historical perspective, is that this was one of the last top-level duels between players with contrasting styles. Pete and Andre had the more famous rivalry, but the most dramatic tennis came when they were paired with someone else who was their stylistic opposite. Pete and Guga gave us this one, as well as an even better match later that year in Lisbon, while Andre and Patrick Rafter traded five-set wins at the majors.
The clip above covers the final points of the match.
—I went to see the movie High Fidelity instead of watching this one, but I did get back in time for the fourth-set tiebreaker. Which means that what comes to mind first when I remember it is Kuerten’s reaction at the end. When he sees his final passing shot tick and tape and go long, he smashes his racquet to the court and then chucks it toward his chair. Despite his reputation as a mellow surfer type, the anger wasn’t completely uncharacteristic—a couple months later, he would become seriously grumpy when Magnus Norman extended him to a fourth set in the French Open final. But the violence, as far I know, was.
—Sampras: bigger hair than normal. Kuerten: The man had many looks over the years, but I thought this was a pretty good one.
—Sampras had one his traditional slump-shouldered, tongue out, I’m almost out of gas moments that day. Was there ever a player who won so many matches in which he appeared to be barely staving off physical collapse? He had a rare blood condition, and nerves must have played a part in aggravating it. I can remember saying “Here we go again,” on more than one occasion when he went into this mode.
—The shot that enraged Guga was a pass from Sampras that was called in on the baseline. Seeing it now, it looks like the ball was long. Alas, there was no Hawk-Eye to prove it either way. Guga reacted in the worst way possible. He didn’t really argue with chair umpire Steve Ulrich, choosing instead to assume that the line judge blew it and that he was robbed. Then he belted a ball into the stands, a peak of emotion that 's tough to come down from in time to be calm enough to play the next point. He never did come down from it. You can see Guga continue to gesture in the direction of that linesman minutes later.
—The all-time greats supposedly never choked, right? Wrong, as Sampras proves here by double-faulting, feebly, at match point. The difference is that he was able to put that botch behind him right away. His next serve was a smart and confident one out wide in the deuce court, which earned him another chance at the title.
—Luke Jensen is unique, I will say that. Typically you’ll hear an announcer—say, Brad Gilbert—become energized when a player goes for a bomb on a big point. I’ve never heard anyone, aside from Jensen here, bellow, “He went for the kick!” Jensen follows that observation up by saying that he “can feel it, the big one down the middle.” Sampras spins the ball lightly into the middle of the net. My favorite Luke-ism occurs a few seconds later, when he steps back to give the big picture about what’s at stake here: “This Masters Series final is really heating up. They’re playing for the crystals, the dollars . . . pride.”
—Classic TV juxtaposition: Sampras telling Pam Oliver (you know tennis was a big deal when Pam Oliver was working it) about what a great tournament Guga had just had, while the camera cuts to a shot of Kuerten pressing a towel into his face in despair.
—Annacone: So calm you wonder if he was even watching the match. Sampras: Very goofy face in the final slo-mo replay of his celebration.
—What about the tennis that’s we see in this tiebreaker? Sampras reminds us that he was an athletic volleyer first and foremost, rather than a crisp technician, à la Stefan Edberg. He’s at his best when he’s reaching and reacting. If the contrast in styles leads to anything, it leads to an unpredictability from one point to the next that’s not as common now.
—I’ve said it before, but Sampras is a guy who I’ve learned to enjoy watching more in retrospect. What once seemed dull now seems like an intelligent and admirable attempt to remain as even-keel as possible, to keep emotion out of the equation. He was taught as a kid that there the only words that should be spoken on a tennis court are "in," "out," and the score; no wonder he struggled to match Agassi's patter in the Hit for Haiti.
For such a great and deeply confident player, it’s odd that Sampras' signature piece of body language was to look straight down at his feet between points. He played an extrovert’s game, free-flowing and aggressive, but he did it with introvert’s manner. Unlike Kuerten on this day, Sampras never appeared to look ahead to what might be coming, or behind at what had already happened. That’s what keeping your head down will do for you.
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Will we see a final this good in 2010, or did the days of all-time Masters Series classics—aside from certain afternoons in Madrid—die with the three-out-of-five-set final? TV coverage starts Saturday on Fox Sports. Tennis.com’s no-holds-barred coverage of the off-court fashion in Miami has already begun here. Have a good weekend.