Tim Henman's Sampras dilemma

 Recently ex tennis player Tim Henman gave his views on what has been the never-ending Roger Federer Pete Sampras debate.  Now this has been done to death since 2004 in the media and on tennis forums long before Federer broke Sampras’ records and long since Federer broke Sampras’ records. 

What surprised me was that Henman, a guy who played both was so willing to give an opinion on an otherwise worn argument.  Henman was in Kolkata India as an ambassador for the HSBC road to Wimbledon tournament.  And he was asked the question:  Having played against both Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, who would you pick as the better player?  This was Henman’s answer:

Yeah, I played Pete when he was world No. 1. He was an incredible player, that's why he won 14 Grand Slams. 

When he served well, he was at the top of his game. But Roger has a better all-round game and plays at a high level all the time. He has a great first and second serve, plays aggressively from the back of the court and has a better return game. To beat Federer, you've got to be at your best. 

Now for a Federer fan that would be seen as a great reply, but for everyone else, the comment does not really seem to make any sense.  The initial observation I would make is; what was Sampras doing and how did he win 14 grand slam tournaments?  Apparently according to Henman, Federer plays at a high level all of the time.  By implication, Sampras did not play at a high level all of the time.  Also, Federer has a great first and second serve and plays aggressively from the back.  If he wasn’t referring to Federer I would have sworn he was talking about Sampras.

But of course, we know no player can play at a high level all of the time, whether it be injuries or crisis of confidence.  In 2013 Federer was knocked out in the 2nd round of Wimbledon as defending champion and the 4th round of the US Open; it happens to everyone.  As Federer is a great player he was able to bounce back in 2014. 

I see quite a few idiosyncrasies with Henman’s comments about Sampras’ game because it is not the first time Henman has made comments along these lines and it certainly will not be the last.  The idiosyncrasies are these: first of all, whenever Henman talks about Sampras’ game he makes what amounts to be very vague statements without getting into any specifics.  I find this slightly surprising considering he played Sampras seven times including two major semifinals at Wimbledon.  Plus on quite a few occasions they were doubles partners and practised a lot together.

I would expect Henman to be able to go into specifics about the Sampras return of serve or his strategy, what he was trying to do out there on the court.  Or, I would expect Henman to talk about Sampras’ movement.  But alas we never seem to get any insights from Henman on these types of interesting facets of their rivalry.  If we are talking about one of the most well known names in the history of the game who was number 1 for 286 weeks, I would really expect to hear a lot more than when he served well, he was at the top of his game. 

This leads to another issue, the head to head with Sampras.  I don’t think this should be taken out of the equation.  They played seven times and the head to head was six to one in Sampras’ favour.  In fact, the only time Henman beat Sampras was their last meeting in the quarterfinal of the 2000 Cincinnati Masters. I recall the Sun newspaper making a big deal out of it as Sampras was certainly Henman’s nemesis.  Apparently Henman also scored a win over Sampras in 1996 in Rotterdam which was a walkover so they didn’t play the match.  Interesting score lines to note include their first meeting in Tokyo 1994 which was an easy 6-1 6-2 win.  Then there is the 1998 Vienna quarterfinal which finished 6-0 6-3.  Henman was broken five times but didn’t create a break point himself.  Then of course the two famous semifinals of 1998 and 1999 when it appeared Henman was getting really close to the breakthrough, especially in 1999 after Henman ran Sampras close in the Queens final.  Henman took the first set and Sampras was feeling the pressure but was able to turn it around, as Pat Cash noted by taking control of the Henman 2nd serve with good returns and passing shots. 

Henman often partners John McEnroe during Wimbledon on BBC phone in Six Love Six on Radio Five live and has been quoted as saying Sampras doesn’t return well and you could always get him to a tiebreak.  In fact, Henman is quoted here from 2009 as saying  Sampras never really returned that well, so as long as you were being disciplined on your serve, you could stay in touch, get to a tie-break and then anything can happen.  Again this is Henman’s opinion and he has a right to it but rather interestingly, in the seven matches they played only three sets went to tiebreaks with Sampras winning two of those, one in 1995 Wimbledon and 1999 Queens final in the third set.  In neither of the Wimbledon semifinals was Henman able to engage Sampras in a tiebreak.  My question would be, what happened?  On the flip side, Henman has a decent head to head with Federer; seven to six in Federer’s favour and Henman won most of the early encounters including the 2001 Wimbledon quarterfinal, his attacking game initially gave Federer a lot of trouble.

This rather curious attitude to Sampras and his game extends beyond Henman but permeates through quite a few of the ex British players.  I think we all know that Greg Rusedski has been less than complimentary about Sampras even when they were playing the game.  In 1995 Rusedski pronounced he would defeat Sampras at Wimbledon even though Sampras was defending champion; Rusedski went on to lose in straight sets……  Then there was the infamous incident in 2002 when Sampras defeated Rusedski in five sets at the third round of the US Open, Rusedski went into the press conference predicting Sampras would not win another match and was a step and a half slow.  The perfect team talk which Sampras used to fire him up and win the tournament taking out top 10 players Haas, Roddick and Agassi in the later rounds. 

That curiousness extended to when Federer broke the grand slam record in 2009 and Rusedski pronounced almost in glee that the only thing Sampras did better was the 2nd serve.  Again it is worth looking at the head to head between the two men, which reads nine to one, the only victory being a surprising win for Rusedski in the 1998 Paris Bercy final in straight sets (best of five).  The 2000 Miami encounter is fun because Sampras gave Rusedski a tennis lesson.

Therefore, Sampras has a combined record of 15 wins to 2 losses (not counting the walkover).  I wonder if there is an element of being “punch drunk” in the comments that these guys continue to make; in other words subconsciously not wanting to give Sampras his due especially over them and most of the field he had to play.  After all Sampras beat both players in a variety of ways ranging from totally outplaying them to taking those really close encounters which probably hurt more.  Rusedski let it show brazenly in 2002 but with Henman I get the impression it manifests itself in different ways.

Being vague does two things; the first is it is bland and the second thing it does is create doubt on what his true opinions are.   Therefore, I would end by saying Tim Henman should really be more magnanimous in his attitude towards Sampras.  And for certain, it would be good in the future to hear more insightful comments when the questions are put to him.