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"I had to play Hewitt in the final barely twenty-four hours after finishing my semi, and by that point, my brain was already slightly fried and my legs were feeling a little heavy. For a veteran, that twenty-four hour turnaround at the Open is one of the toughest assignments in tennis, mentally as well as physically" (246).
Coming towards the end of his career, Sampras was still one of the top players on the tour but like every other tennis player, your body eventually gives into the age and your physicality is just not at the same level it was 5 years ago. It does not matter how fit you are, once you are older, your recovery is much slower and in this case, it costed Sampras from winning another U.S. Open. He lost pretty quickly to the rising star Lleyton Hewitt who was searching for his first grand slam. Luckily for this young Australian, Sampras was not aging out of the tour and did not have the physical ability to win in that situation. Even after this tournament, Sampras was able to win the next years U.S. Open which was somewhat ironic because he did it the next year and he beat Agassi yet again.

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December 9, 2016

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"The last man standing between me and equal status with Roy Emerson was my main rival, Andre. It had rained on the Saturday women's final, so the match between Lindsay Davenport and Steffi Graf was scheduled to finish on Sunday, as a prelude to our final" (215).
Pete Sampras was playing for his 12th Grand Slam title which would tie him with Roy Emerson for the most Grand Slam titles in men's tennis. This achievement is probably one of the most prominent and prestigious to win because winning the most Grand Slams essentially establishes that a player is one of the best if not the best in the game. Ironically, Pete Sampras was playing his rival Andre Agassi and although he won relatively easily in this match, they had some very intense matches in the past that established this rivalry between the two.

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"When I evaluate how I was able to win so many matches over so many years, a few things pop up as keys to the accomplishment. First, I trusted myself and the Gift. Throughout my career, whenever I made a critical mistake, I just wiped it off the hard drive. I don't really know how I developed that ability to move on instead of dwell upon, but I had it. My guess is that it was some mental function, rather than emotional one- a kind of extra-high focus on success. And a lot of it was sheer will" (209).
In this quote, Sampras lists his key to success and how he was able to win so many matches in his careers. As a tennis player, advice like this is everywhere but coming from someone like Sampras who has had the most experience on the court, it is more reliable and inspiring. There is a point in tennis when the game shifts from being a physical and mechanical game to a mental game. Players with more mental toughness definitely have an advantage because they are able to win the longer points and stay focused throughout the whole match without as many lapses.

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December 2, 2016

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November 29, 2016

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"I finished number one for the year for the third consecutive time in 1995, even though Andre held the top spot for most of that time. To clinch the ranking. I had to beat Boris Becker in the final of the Paris Indoors in November. If I had finished the year a close number two to Andre, the tenor of my entire career might have changed" (156).
In the game of tennis, the mental game is one of the most, if not the most important parts for every player. In this case, Sampras was fighting for his number 1 rank and needed to be successful at the Paris indoors to get that spot. It may not have seemed like a big deal but finishing number 2 instead of number 1 is so heartbreaking, especially if you had a chance to become number 1 and you just blew it. His confidence and mental state going into the next year could have been heavily hit if he didn't finish number 1 and his success after that year could have been different. I thought this quote perfectly portrayed the idea of how important the mental toughness of a player, especially at his level.

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"Once in a while, I'd go out to the village, or down another hill to the town of Wimbledon and the San Lorenzo restaurant , an Italian place that has been a fixture with the players for ages. Once in a while I might hit a movie, but that would be it. I'd go out maybe twenty-five percent of the time" (140).
I found this quote quite inspiring because it just highlighted the fact that being a pro tennis player was extremely time consuming and leaves almost no time for leisure. Everyone thinks that becoming a professional tennis player means that they make a lot of money and live a luxurious life but they have to train everyday to make that money and become that successful which leaves little time for a movie, or spending time with friends. Sampras just shows this idea in this quote and after reading this, I thought it was extremely important to understand and it applies for most of the other athletes as well.

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"Here's another thing to consider. I'm not sure that long points automatically increase interest in the game- not by a long shot. People have complained for ages about the boredom of watching endless, sometimes seemingly aimless, rallies on clay. I think the mix of court speeds and styles of play are great assets to tennis, and one hidden cost of that tradition is that you occasionally get matchups that produce one-dimensional tennis on a given surface" (111).
At this time in Sampras's career, people started to criticize the fact that Sampras plays a "boring" and "fast" game which is not as fun to watch as people such as Michael Chang who plays longer points which seems to make the match more interesting to watch. Sampras was not exactly a fan favorite and a major part of that was his playing style because he rarely had those nail-biting matches that would get the crowd on their feet. This affected the way that Sampras was outside the tennis court and it seemingly unfair because he would the same if not more matches than the so called fan favorite players even though they may play more interesting matches.

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"The best coaches out there develop tricks for getting their jobs done, and some of the ploys are strategies you might use on a kid. For example, a common technique for getting a great player to make some change in his game is to plant the idea in a conversation, and then manipulate the discussion in a way that allows the player to take ownership of the idea- like it was his, not yours. It seems transparent but it works" (74).
This quote showed more of a coaching aspect of tennis rather than from the players perspective. Sampras was definitely a more calculated and intelligent player compared to the average person on the tour so this kind of thinking was very interesting to read because these are the kinds of things that a select few tennis players would pick up on. Even though he was never a coach, he still understand all the different roles of tennis and overtime saw the tricks and ploys created to better players.

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"Our relationship effectively ended the night of the paper plat. My dad quietly decided to cut him off, and he had an even more powerful reason for that than the demands Fischer was making. Dad was worried that I relied too much on Pete, and that my development was being arrested. I needed to get out in the world and learn to deal with it, firsthand" (37).
Being one of Pete Sampras's first coaches, Pete Fischer was not a traditional tennis coach. He actually was a doctor and taught tennis for Pete on the side which was also unorthodox considering Pete was very talented at this time. As Sampras improved, Coach Fischer was trying to take advantage of Pete by asking for a percentage of all his earnings in everything, from sponsors to prize money. Because of his greed and bad influence on Pete Sampras, his father cut Fischer from his team. This quote shows how Pete needed to grow up and be able to take on some of the responsibilities of being a professional tennis player.

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"Dad knew nothing about tennis, so he had no aspirations for me until I displayed interest in the game. He also was utterly unfamiliar with the tennis scene, which is insular and mostly made up of people whose families have been involved in the game for multiple generations. But he noticed that I had a strong athletic bent" (3).
This quote was very fascinating and surprising to read because I assumed that Pete Sampras had a long history and background of tennis but he had the exact opposite. To be such a world class player and not having any prior relatives knowing much about the sport was very unprecedented at this time. After reading Open by Andre Agassi and his rough childhood with his diligent father, I figured most top tennis players had some kind of background like that but on the contrary, Pete Sampras's father had no experience with tennis and instead, Pete was just extremely athletic, hardworking, and talented.

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November 18, 2016

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"The only surface I never entirely mastered was slow European clay, insofar as I never won the biggest clay tournament, the French Open" (4).

"As we arrived at each tiebreaker, I was well aware that an errant shot by me here, or a great lucky shot by him there, would win him the set" (101).

"It was not an easy technique to execute; on a bad day, you could look downright foolish, kind of like a cavalry on horseback changing a tank battalion" (166).