For one of the most important events in an individual sport, the US Open is boiling down to teamwork. The New York public have never really taken Pete Sampras to their hearts — not only does he play a game that most Americans never watch, he plays it in foreign countries and that seldom goes down well on this side of the pond — but on Wednesday the hardy souls who braved the chill night air decided to give their man a helping hand. A little moral support encouraged Sampras to find his best when he needed it to beat Richard Krajicek 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, 6-2.
At the same time, Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis are trying a two-pronged approach to counter the challenge of the Williams sisters. A team talk before Davenport played Serena in the quarter-finals paid dividends as Davenport walloped the younger sister 6-4, 6-2, and she is now waiting to see whether Hingis can live up to her side of the bargain and beat Venus in the semi-finals.
Sampras looked as if he needed all the help he could get as Krajicek set about him for most of the first two sets. Unable to get a clean swing at the Dutchman’s booming service — Krajicek produced 23 aces, 15 of them during those two sets — he was left scratching his head as he tried to find a solution to the puzzle.
Appealing to the crowd to get behind him in the second set, he finally cracked it in the tie-break. The match hung on a handful of points during that decider — Sampras nailed them and Krajicek did not — and that was all that was needed. From holding four points for a two-set lead, Krajicek could only watch as Sampras moved into championship form, levelled the scores and pulled away. Disappointed in the third set and deflated in the fourth, Krajicek’s chance had gone as Sampras took on the look of a man waiting to claim his fourteenth grand-slam title.
Now he faces Lleyton Hewitt in the last four in a rematch of the final at Queen’s Club, or at least that is the way it seems. Sampras has other ideas. "Last time I played Lleyton, he gave me a lesson," he said. Beating Sampras at the Arthur Ashe Stadium on Super Saturday will take a lot more. "Saturday’s going to be a different match, a much bigger match," Sampras said.
After a few rounds of trying hard — and failing — to lose, Marat Safin seems to have found a simpler winning formula, beating Nicolas Kiefer 7-5, 4-6, 7-6, 6-3 on Thursday. Reaching his first grand-slam semi-final without smashing a single racket, something of a first for the temperamental Russian, he knows that he is playing well but does not want to think about winning the tournament. "It would be nice, but it’s a long way," he said. As for the thought of playing Sampras in the final, he was running scared. "I don’t even want to think about it," he added.
Davenport had played Williams six times, with Serena winning the past five, so the No 2 seed had a point to prove. Then again, most players feel that way about the Williams sisters. Convinced of their own genius, they have frequently talked themselves into a corner and looked less than happy when people have celebrated their defeats. This was one of those occasions.
Serena may not have dropped a set on her way to the quarter-finals, but she was still looking vulnerable as the errors mounted. Coming out with all guns blazing against Davenport, Serena could not shake her opponent off her tail. Running out of puff in the second set, she wilted as Davenport cruised through and completed stage one of the game-plan.
"It all started last year," Davenport said. "I played the first semi-final against Serena and she [Hingis] played Venus. She said to me, ‘You better win’, and I lost. When I saw her in the locker-room she was just shaking her head at me. This time she said, ‘You’re first again’. I think she feels like she sides with me against them."
This was remarkable stuff from Davenport, who, on realising that she had put her foot in it, started back-pedalling. Serena, though, knew exactly what Davenport meant. "No one would want to see an all-Williams final because everyone doesn’t really like us," she said. "That’s just the way it is."
Alix Ramsay
Tennis Correspondent, in New York
The Times
