A Champion's Mind - Pete Sampras

messing around, trying to get that stupid little string and tag off the button on the new shirt.
I had a thing about tennis shoes, going all the way back to the time I paid dearly for changing to the new
Nike Air models. Clothing and shoe companies often wanted you to switch to shoes that matched
whatever line they were promoting, but I wouldn’t have it. When I found the Nike Air Oscillate, which
was pretty light but had good stiffness and support, I stuck with it. Nike sold plenty of them, too.
All the shoe manufacturers make special shoes for the grass-court pros, ones with a grid of little stubs
on the bottom. They were like soft, tiny cleats. I didn’t want the stubs to get too low (from wear), but I
also didn’t want to wear a new pair of shoes for every match, like some guys did. In general, I loved
wearing worn-down shoes on most courts, but not on grass. So I would take a new pair of shoes, practice
with them, and play one or maybe two matches wearing them. Then I would throw that pair away and
break in a new one. So the most wear I got out of a pair of shoes at Wimbledon was one practice and two
matches.
With Nike, it was important to stay on top of the company because as they changed lines and factories,
you just never knew what you would get, sizing-wise. Jim Courier and I used to piss and moan about that.
We’d say, “Do what you want to the color or pattern, but don’t change the length of the hem on the shorts
or the cut of the foot bed in the shoe.” Sometimes I’d get a batch of shoes that came from a different
factory than the last batch, and I could barely get my custom-made orthotic inserts into them. Of course,
top pros tend to be more particular about things like the precise fit of their shoes or clothing, and we must
have driven the Nike guys to distraction with our quibbles. Perhaps surprisingly, they didn’t make custom
shoes for us.
I was almost never hassled in Wimbledon Village. One time a couple of kids came to the door and
knocked, asking for an autograph, which I happily gave them. Each day, I’d just call the All England Club
for my courtesy car, and in moments it was there. It took all of five minutes to get to the club to practice or
play. The club itself was very cozy, even after the renovation binge in the late 1990s. The tradition there
until the remodeling was that they had two locker rooms—a fairly big, well-appointed one for the seeded
players (the “A” locker room), and a smaller one that wasn’t even part of the main clubhouse/Centre
Court complex for the journeymen, juniors, and others.
I made it into the A locker room pretty quickly, but the crazy thing was that it was not just tight, it was
probably more crowded than the B locker room. You had all the seeded players in there, plus their
coaches, and you had the former champions, some old guys, and club members. It was jammed. The guys
would sit in there playing backgammon or cards, or telling stories. I’d mostly sit and listen. The most
memorable thing about that locker room to me was it was a very short walk down a set of stairs and
through a small holding room and there you were—right on the hallowed Centre Court.
That holding room is where they have that famous Kipling quote above the door: “If you can meet with
Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same . . .” Everyone talks about that plaque
and how much it means, how it sends chills down the spine of a player waiting to walk out there. It’s
pretty dramatic, because when you’re in that room, you can look out the open door and see that green
patch of Centre Court, all aglow in the sunlight, beyond the short, dark gangway. But the thing I remember
most is the trophy—the singles trophy, which was always sitting right there to the left of the door.
Steve Adams is the attendant in that little room; his official job title is Master of Ceremonies and his
task is to hold the players there until everything is ready. Usually, once you stage with your opponent,
Steve walks out onto Centre Court first to make sure everything is okay—that everybody in the Royal Box
is seated, that the chair umpire is ready, that the crowd has settled, and that the net has been checked and
secured. Then he returns and says, in this chipper, matter-of-fact voice: “Okay, we’re all set, gentlemen.
There is royalty; you must bow . . .”
Later in my career, Adams would sometimes turn to the poor guy standing next to me and say something
like, “Oh, just follow Pete; he knows what to do.”