Hey, different strokes for different folks. Except for this: in their furious, simultaneous pursuit of excellence, major championships, the No. i ranking–and especially each other– Agassi and Sampras have created the hottest sporting rivalry of the sea-son. They’re a mutually admiring odd couple, Agassi’s Glitz Grunge Pirate and Sampras’s Neighborhood Boy Nice. And as they join their delicious battle again on the green lawns of Wimbledon, the question remains which is greater: the stylistic and personality differences between the two or their Similar brilliance with a racquet?
For two years the Agassi-Sampras rivalry has not only dominated tennis but nearly transcended it. A Nicklaus-Palmer, Ali-Frazier kind of thing. A contest, in Agassi’s own words, “with all the ingredients of the Yankees-Dodgers, Lakers-Celtics.
Between them, Agassi and Sampras have won the last two Australian Opens, the last two U.S. Opens, the last three Wimbledons. In the ’90s they’ve won three of the five ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) World Championships; since the summer of ‘93, they’ve won six of the last eight Grand Slams.
Last year, though Sampras won 10 tournaments to retain his No. 1 ranking, a foot injury rendered him helpless through the summer. Agassi roared into the breach, winning his first U.S. nationals and rising to No. 2. Then this season came nirvana in triplicate: the rivals exchanged victories in three big-time tournament finals. Agassi won the Australian Open, after which Sampras said, “I can’t wait to boat his brains the next time.” He did, at Indian Wells, Calif., upon which Agassi vowed, “I’ll kick Pete’s ass next week,” which he also did, in Key Biscayne, Fla.
By April 10, the No. 1 ranking had switched racquets to Agassi for the first time. Pending the Wimbledon final on July 9, the soonest they can rendezvous again, Sampras has won 8 of their 15 head-to-head matches (7 of which have been in either Grand Slam or World Championship events). But Agassi has actually won 23 of the 42 sets-it’s that close. Their career win-loss records are also nearly identical: Agassi’s is 385-126; Sampras’s, 384-118. But, save their work ethics, self-confidence, hunger for titles and their ugly Nike tent-shorts, that’s their only recurring sameness.
The Agassi of old was a shallow, labor-challenged guy with peroxide tresses-he was Kato long before Kato had a house to guest in. But last week there he was, actually grinding away for hours on a grass court in the 109-degree desert heat of the Indian Wells resort in the ‘Springs. Recovering from the hip injury he suffered in the French Open, Agassi was transhoning his game from the slow red day of Paris and training with the new, low-pressurized balls that will be used on the blistering-quick greensward of Wimbledon. He’s “running his ass off, slugging those babies from around his ankles,” said his coach Brad Gilbert. “But on the great courts at Wimbledon Andre will get the true bounce for his returns-they’ll be right up in his strike zone.”
Back in London at the Queens Club tournament, an annual Wimbledon run-up, Sampras was recovering from his own lost spring on the European clay–eight matches, five defeats- with the help of those very same spheres. Using the heavier, slower balls, all Sampras did was whack 75 aces in five matches. Because of a rain delay, he played the semifinal and final singles at Queens plus a doubles match on the same day, 111 games total, and won all three. “I’m ready,” Sampras said of Wimbledon (or of Agassi). “I don’t care what kind of ball it is. Give it to me on a grass surface and I’m going to hit aces.”
The contrast that makes the Agassi-Sampras rivalry so riveting begins with looks and personality. But it also extends to the styles of their games. Sampras, 24 in August, is tall and stately with darkish, Greco-Kennedy killer looks. He is quiet, laid back, normal to the point of boredom, with the classic serve-and-volley game to match. His is not the most powerful serve on tour but he’s the best at picking his spots and disguising the placements. Before his coach, Tim Gullickson, was sidelined by a brain tumor, Gully taught Sampras how to play on grass – shortening his swing with blocks and slices to keep him in the point. He had always hit the ball on the run better than anybody alive; now Sampras has won two Wimbledons running.
Agassi is different–way different. He got his infamous Van Gogh-goes-to-prison haircut at the Oribo salon at Elizabeth Arden in New York, and says he designed his street-punk outfits with Mixmaster stripes so people could “go skateboarding” in them. But beyond the glitter and the psychobabble, Agassi, just turned 25, may boa born tennis genius. He has incredibly quick hands, sublime in touch and feel. He’s the best counter puncher since Jimmy Connors (only faster, stronger). If the serve is the most significant shot in tennis, the return is a dose second–and that’s what Agassi lives off. He’s a natural belter who with legendarily sparse practice “sees” the ball like a great baseball hitter, nails it early, on the rise, and forces even the most secure server to cringe at the thought of having to face his replies. Everyone raves about Agassi’s laser forehand, but it’s his double-fisted backhand (enabling him to control the low ball) that makes him so dangerous.
“That’s his equity shot, the liquidator,” says Gilbert, a savvy tour veteran who joined Agassi after wrist surgery threatened to end the star’s career in late 1998. “Beej” motivated the former Slackassi to think and strategize, to exploit his power by dosing to the net and to use his serve as a weapon. “Winning Ugly,” the title of Gfibert’s autobiography, is a fair description of the results. “I made the commitment, but Brad directed the effort,” Agassi says.
Nike is playing off the competition with an ad showing Agassi and Sampras in a guerrilla match in a packed San Francisco intersection. But the best (or, if you are a sleazy British tabloid, the worst) aspect of the rivalry is that the men, who played together on the junior circuit, sincerely get along. “These guys show it’s possible to have a great rivalry without hating the other guy,” says Tom Gullickson, Tim’s twin brother and their Davis Cup captain. “For too long in tennis we never had that,”
He’s referring, of course, to the sport’s historic altercations, like those among Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg and John Mc-Enroe and Ivan Lendl. Connors once said menacingly of Borg, “I’ll follow the s.o.b. to the ends of the earth,” and he called Lendl “a chicken.” McEnroe uttered sweet nasties about Borg upon his early retirement and always ridiculed Lendl. Jimbo and Mac tried to meld on a Davis Cup team and the fortunate outcome was that nobody got killed; in a recent seniors event the two were still snarling at each other.
“I could never get mad like that at Pete,” says Agassi, who did once crack that his compare looked like he “had swung down from a tree.” Immediately, he faxed Sampras an apology. The worst Sampras has done is mock-describing for David Letterman how Andre’s former friend, Barbra Streisand, cheered him on at Wimbledon, calling him” ‘Dre. Let’s go, ‘Dre, c’mon, ‘Dre."
What stands out now is their mutual respect and a recognition that they may be facing a struggle for the ages, a testosterone version of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. That marathon came to define both players-and prolonged their careers. “The excrement and intensity between Pete and me is way beyond anything I experience playing the other guys,” Agassi said as he arrived in Wimbledon village last Thursday. “He’s the one guy I feel gives me no say in the match. Just knowing he’s out there inspires me.”
Et tu, Pete? “It’s special playing Andre,” Sampras said, pausing between trips to Crumpets. “He’s the one guy who, even if I’m playing well, can take me down. But I think we both hope the other reaches the finals in all the Slams. That’s what this is all about, To go down in history as one of the great rivalries in tennis. . . that would be the ultimate.”
Of course, if they could keep exchanging victories and remain the same people-which is to say so vastly different-that would be even better.
23 years old, 6 feet one, 170 pounds
Professional since 1988
Career earnings: $14,602,863
Endorsements: Nike, Movado, Ray-Ban, Wilson
Ranked No. 1 for 82 consecutive weeks until April 10, 1995
Grand Slam victories: 3
25 years old, 5 feet 11, 175 pounds
Professional since 1986
Career earnings: $8,587,956
Endorsements: Canon, Head, Nike
Ranked No. 1 since April 10, 1995
Grand Slam victories: 3
SOURCE: U.S. TENNIS ASSOC., INT’L MANAGEMENT GROUP
title: “Different Strokes” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-08” author: “Melva Hammond”
title: “Different Strokes” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-28” author: “George Edwards”
Thirty-five years after an eye injury ended his brief stint as a third baseman with the Dodgers (so brief that we can’t find any reference to it on the Web), Mehas is back in the big leagues. But this ain’t Dodger Stadium, or Shea or Yankee either. This is the Gezira Sporting Club in the middle of an island on the Nile in Cairo. And Mehas’s sport today is called “golf croquet.” He’s competing this week in the world championships, which will be decided here on Thursday.
Arab mobs may be raging against the United States in other parts of the Middle East–even other parts of Cairo. Palestinians may be courting martyrdom against Israeli soldiers firing staccato bursts from American guns in Gaza. But around the closely cropped courts in this bastion of the Cairene elite, the flags of the United States and Palestine wave side by side, along with those of Australia, Egypt, Italy, even the Isle of Man.
The atmosphere seems so civilized that Mehas looks like a barbarian at the gate. But as with many other sports, croquet carries the burden of particularly intense nationalisms.
Irish player Evan Newell is happy to explain the rules to a reporter on the sidelines. It’s pronounced “croaky,” he insists, and was invented in Ireland in the early 19th century, not in France, as the spelling of the name might have you believe. By the 1840s, it was the rage in England, but its roots were always in Eire. “It was the great game at the big old country homes and you turned out in all your finery,” says Newell, who looks pretty fine himself in his straw hat, white trousers and white lawn-bowling shoes.
Chris Bennett, the English coach of the South African team, calls croquet “the last of the great Victorian games, which England exported to all the colonies.” Three of the players he’s brought along are black employees of a Johannesburg country club. They’d never held a mallet in their hands before the end of the apartheid. “A microcosm of the new South Africa,” says Bennett.
Colonial Condescension The setting for this week’s championship has a long and elegant heritage, but its history is not altogether happy. Founded in the 1880s as the Khedival Sporting Club, it was the epicenter of British colonial condescension for more than 60 years. The architecture dates back to the days of pashas and tarbushes, when British officers sipped their gin and tonics beneath the jacarandas and surveyed the debutantes out from England trolling for husbands.
Around today’s croquet courts, one still finds a hint of the old gentility, even among those who suffered most from the unsettled conflicts the British colonials left behind.
Soha Akl, 67, has lived in Cairo since her family fled from Jerusalem in 1948 after the British mandate ended and the first Arab-Israeli war erupted. Her father lost and re-made his fortune, allowing her to play croquet at this club for the last 40 years. But Palestinians never forget where they came from, which is why she and three other players went out for these championships. “Palestine doesn’t have croquet,” she says, “but we try to hold up our flag to say–to say that we exist.”
“Quick, Fast and Furious” At this week’s competition, however, gentility takes a back seat as the better players advance. Unlike American Rules Croquet, or Europe’s Association Croquet–which seem to be as endless and as incomprehensible as cricket–this version is “quick, fast and furious,” says Chris Bennett. There are two players on the court, each playing two balls that have to be hit in alternation. “Not difficult to learn,” says Bennett, “but very difficult to play very well.” Imagine 20-yard billiard shots hit with a sledge-hammer.
“The game is totally a freak,” says former L.A. Dodger Mik Mehas after trouncing the last Irishman on the court Sunday morning. It’s hard to be more American–more Californian–than Mehas. Through much of his post-baseball career, he worked on the fringes of the movie industry, producing independent films that he isn’t inclined to name. In 1988, Mehas was living in Palm Springs, when he noticed a bunch of croquet mallets in the window of a local department store and publicity for a tournament with cash prizes. “I was amazed they were playing this game for money,” he says.
By 1997, he was U.S. National Champion. Now, he’s hoping this faster, leaner, meaner version of the sport will make it onto television. “Think of mini-cams on the top of the hoops,” says Mehas.
With that in mind, he’s willing to put up with the Egyptians’s tactics for victory. Never mind that Egyptians are already the premier players of this particular game–and that the compeition’s happening on their turf. The Egyptian government wants a victory. The Egyptian sports minister declared that he’d award a prize worth several thousand dollars to the winner of the tournament, but only if he or she were Egyptian.
Perhaps the veneer of gentility at the Gezira Club was always a lie, even and especially when this was a quiet colonial establishment. But the idea of elegant civilized games, played by people in all their finery, seems mightily appealing compared to the deadly sport of rocks, riots, and gunfire now being played out just east of Suez. Between the lust for national victories and cash prizes, the mini-cams and the customs counter, the last vestiges of that gentility are disappearing fast.
