Courier-Sampras

The Tennis Channel is showing reruns of old Australian Open matches, presumably to whet our appetite for the upcoming Australian Open in January. I just saw parts of the match between Sampras and Courier from the 1995 quarterfinals. I don't think I ever saw that match before.

In the fourth set, Courier was up two sets to one, and up a break. He had won the first two sets in tiebreaks. To be honest, this is a match Courier should have won. And despite Sampras coming back to win in five sets, it didn't seem that well played.

Courier seemed to have a pretty simple strategy. Attack Sampras's backhand. Sampras had, by that point, learned how to hit a reasonably consistent backhand, even if he couldn't exactly hit winners. Sampras was not really on his game, and made a few errors, but somehow, Courier, who had been playing a shade better, simply got nervous, began missing a few shots, and boom, Sampras breaks and wins the set.

This has to be frustrating. You look at Sampras, and normally, he plays pretty good for some games, and then really good to engineer a break. In this case, it was more like Courier made a mental slip, and didn't take advantage of his opportunities.

Courier had a reasonably decent cross court backhand, but I was surprised he didn't try to take his backhand up the line a few times to surprise Sampras. He must have felt a bit shaky going up the line. Generally, it is easier to go crosscourt than up the line, but if Courier didn't get a good angle, Sampras could have run around the shot and hit a decent forehand.

I'd have to imagine Courier had to be really discouraged with that match, realizing Sampras wasn't playing that well, and Courier was playing well enough to win.

I'm now watching a match from earlier this year. It's Safin vs. Federer. It's in the fifth set, and Safin is up break points. This is from two years ago. Looks like Safin eventually wins this one. Safin was always such a streaky player. If had his head on straight, we might be talking about Safin as one of the best players, not Federer. Safin's not as smooth as Federer, but his backhand is actually rather smooth, and his serve can be impressive.

When Safin is on, I'd rather watch his game than, say, Sampras's game.