A Champion's Mind - Pete Sampras

fourth round and came up against the mercurial Czech player Petr Korda.
It rained on and off on the day we would play. It was a herky-jerky match in every sense, including the
way we played. I was playing okay—I won the first set in a tiebreaker. But then I lost the next two sets,
reviving just in time to win the fourth 6–3. When I rolled to a 3–1 lead in the fifth, I think everyone
(myself included, to be honest) thought we had passed the turning point. But I have to give Korda credit.
He hung in there. He was right at my side, hitting his unpredictable and sometimes dazzling winners each
time I threatened to open a bigger lead. He broke me back, forced the tiebreaker, and won it 7–3 to take
the match.
That was one of Korda’s signature, streaky performances, on a day when my own nerves were a bit
frazzled and thin—mostly because of the somber, gray atmosphere and the annoying rain delays. I had two
majors already that year, and taking the U.S. title would have made ’97 my best year, productionwise.
And to rub salt in the wound, Korda didn’t even play his next match because, he said, he was sick. Like
almost all top players, if I was going to lose I wanted it to be to the guy who would win the tournament.
Korda would go on to win the Australian Open in 1998; it would be his lone Grand Slam title. But
shortly thereafter, he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in what was the first high-profile
drug suspension in my era. He was subsequently fined and suspended from the game.
Steroid abuse wasn’t a big story in tennis until many years later, so I’m no expert on the subject. But I
believe that 99 percent of the tennis players are, and always have been, clean. It isn’t in the nature of most
players to mess with drugs—tennis players who make the tour level are shaped in an information-rich
environment, usually by people who are sophisticated and knowledgeable; they aren’t naive or ignorant of
the long-term dangers posed by performance-enhancing drugs the way some young players might be in
some of the more popular sports.
Also, tennis is less about strength than quickness, so the premium on building muscle isn’t that high. I
don’t think the NBA has a big performance-enhancing-drug problem either, because basketball and tennis
are both more about quickness and good hands rather than about big muscles and strength. But I’ve come
to learn that performance-enhancing drugs do have some subtle benefits for a tennis player. They enable
him to train hard and recover faster—that is, to build a fitness base and stroking discipline with stamina
they don’t naturally possess. Still, guys who practice the most, or who have the most stamina, aren’t the
big winners.
I’m not naturally a suspicious person, but one thing that troubles me whenever there’s a doping
controversy is the way guys always have the excuses: I drank my wife’s medication by mistake; the doctor
wrote the wrong prescription; the testing procedure was flawed. In other words, the dog always eats the
homework. I really have nothing but contempt for guys who get caught and try to wriggle out of it that way.
I took a lot of pills in my time, including all kinds of vitamins, and always went to a doctor to have them
checked out to make sure they were legal. And that was well before doping raised its head as a serious
issue. It can be done. I’m tired of the excuses you keep hearing, and see no gray area—it’s up to you to
test clean; if you test positive for steroids, you should be penalized, unless there is some clear and
overwhelming mitigating circumstance. End of story.
The other thing for me was that I could never cheat. I just couldn’t justify taking an unfair or illegal
advantage, and doing so would have messed with my mind so much that it would have wiped out any good
that drugs might have done. Even if I was sure other guys were doing it, I just wouldn’t take steroids for
ethical reasons. Not even if everyone around me egged me on, telling me that everyone else was on them,
not even if it meant the difference between keeping up with the pack or falling behind. I realize it’s easy
for me to take that high ground, but I believe that’s how I would have felt if presented with the option.
Here’s something else. It’s rarely the top guys who pay for the sins of the dopers. One thing drugs can’t
do is make you a Wimbledon champion, or give you a game to beat Roger Federer. The guys who really
get hurt are the players in the doper’s peer group, where boosting your ranking by just a few notches, or