A Champion's Mind - Pete Sampras

more than a casual commitment), but the way my singles career unfolded, Davis Cup became a constant
source of tension. I knew that it wasn’t feasible to focus on staying number one, winning majors, and also
play a full four-week Davis Cup schedule. It was too much. So some years I committed to Davis Cup, and
some years I declined. I skipped 1993 and was part of the 1994 squad that lost in the semifinals.
But there was another subtle factor at play in 1995. That year, my rivalry with Andre Agassi was
entering a new peak phase. Just months earlier, at the 1994 U.S. Open, Andre completed his epic journey
back from the netherworld of the rankings to become the first unseeded player to win the title. Then he
beat me in the Australian Open final to start ’95. People everywhere were dying to see Andre emerge as
my rival. That was fine by me; I knew that any player is only as good—especially in the court of public
opinion—as the quality of his competition. And Nike, the company that sponsored both of us, was at the
head of the parade of people doing everything possible to fire the rivalry.
Andre, Jim, and I had all agreed to play Davis Cup in 1995, and as soon as the draw kicked out USA at
Italy in the second round, it spelled trouble. The quarterfinal tie was scheduled for the out-of-the-way city
of Palermo, Sicily, at the end of March—right after the two big U.S. hard-court tournaments (Indian Wells
and Key Biscayne) left contenders like us tired and looking for some downtime before the European claycourt
season.
The three of us all wanted to do what was best for Davis Cup, tennis, and ourselves. The bottom line
was that nobody really wanted to go and play the Italians right after Key Biscayne, but there was pressure
from various factions for us to win the Cup—how could you not win the Cup when you had Sampras,
Agassi, Courier, and Chang as potential team members? It was sure to be a public-relations disaster if all
of us skipped the event because we had other, more important fish to fry. We would look selfish and
unpatriotic.
There was this, too: after Andre beat me in the 1995 Australian Open final, we both had the sense that
the two of us would be battling it out for the number one ranking in the coming months and years. Very
honestly, neither of us wanted to make a Davis Cup sacrifice that would ultimately improve the other
guy’s chances at the big tournaments, or over the long hunt for the number one ranking.
At Indian Wells in the late winter with Davis Cup looming, we all recognized we had a problem, so we
took the unusual step of getting together—literally, in the same room—with Tom Gullikson (who had
taken over as Davis Cup captain) and a few other advisers to talk things out. And we decided, face-toface
and right on the spot, that if nobody wanted to go to Italy but somebody had to go, the only fair thing
was for everyone to go.
So we made that decision and held a big press conference, saying that Andre and I were both going to
Palermo, with Jim waiting in the wings if needed. Over the next few weeks, Andre and I split the Indian
Wells and Miami titles. With his win over me in Key Biscayne, Andre stripped me of the number one
ranking. I’d end up chasing him all summer in hopes of getting it back.
But right after our Miami match, we hopped on a plane to New York—actually, we hopped on Andre’s
chartered jet, and that night paid his new girlfriend, Brooke Shields, a surprise visit on the set of her
Broadway play Grease. We spent the night in New York, then flew by Concorde to London and took
another private plane to Palermo for the tie.
The tie against Italy was a mismatch. The Italian singles players, Renzo Furlan and Andrea Gaudenzi,
were solid top-fifty players, but nothing more. Granted, they were playing at home, on clay, before an
Italian crowd that could be very vocal and unruly. But the way to neutralize that was to keep it from
becoming a battle. That’s just what we did, winning the first three matches to clinch by the second day of
play.
We didn’t have to worry about the semifinal tie until September, when we would be meeting a tough
Swedish team led by Mats Wilander. At least we would get them at home—for Andre, literally at home,
in Las Vegas.