Sampras Mows Down Chang For U.S. Open Title

Pete Sampras does mostly everything - hits forehands, backhands and serves - better than Michael Chang. Sunday night, after a 2-1/2-hour rain delay, in the last championship match at Louis Armstrong Stadium, the top-seeded Sampras did it again, did everything better than second-seeded Chang, and won his second consecutive U.S. Open title, by 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

Next year, the Open will move into a new, 23,500-seat stadium across the way, and the old Stadium Court, the biggest on the Grand Slam circuit, will have its top chopped off and be made smaller.

That is how Chang must have felt Sunday night - as if his top were chopped off, as if he were very small.

Chang lost the first set in 28 minutes, and in 1 hour, 59 minutes, he converted only 1 of 7 break points. It wasn’t for lack of effort or because of terribly bad play on Chang’s part, either.

Sampras’ forehand is large and fast, like a train coming. The backhand is so low, you can’t limbo under it, but almost always, somehow, it slides over the net into some far corner. Of course, the Sampras serve is a wicked combination of speed and placement.

Nine times in 10 meetings, Sampras has beaten Chang. Sunday night, Sampras was hitting everything too hard, too fast, too well.

“When Pete’s at his best,” Chang said, “obviously, he is a very tough player to beat. Pete is not going to give you a whole lot. You have to play some of your best tennis.”

Sampras was at his best, and Chang wasn’t.

It was the 24-year-old Chang’s first Open final, and Chang was aiming to become the No. 1-ranked player in the world. All he had to do was beat the No. 1 player, the player who has come to own this tournament in the 1990s. Sampras has won four Opens now, the first in 1990, when he was barely 19 and unable to appreciate what had happened.

This fourth might have been the hardest ordeal. Sampras has been emotionally weakened since the illness, then death from brain cancer, of Tim Gullikson, his coach and friend. Gullikson died in May, and when Sampras hit his final shot - a 117-m.p.h. service winner - he looked to the sky and raised his arms.