Chang chugs towards court curtain-call

Michael Chang is not the first celebrity from Hoboken, New Jersey, to plan a farewell tour. Unlike Frank Sinatra, however, one more trip round the block is likely to be enough for the diminutive tennis player.

Starting at the Siebel Open in San Jose next Monday, 12 days before his 31st birthday, and finishing at the United States Open in September, Chang hopes to meet and greet old friends and rivals, particularly Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, before ending his career.

Chang will have to put a reunion with Sampras on hold. The 31-year-old Californian, who thought about retiring after adding a 14th Grand Slam singles title to his record at the United States Open last September, continues to delay the start of his 16th season.

"Although I have made significant progress in recent weeks, I am not fully prepared," Sampras said yesterday, announcing his withdrawal from the San Jose event.

Barry MacKay, the tournament chairman, articulated the thoughts of many tennis observers when he said: "Pete is still vexed by the big picture of his career. I think it's a combination of his physical preparation and not being 100 per cent committed to returning." With Sampras dithering and Chang just about chugging along, Agassi represents the vibrant remains of a quartet of diverse American talents who emerged in the late 1980s to fill the void left by John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.

Some would argue that McEnroe and Connors were irreplaceable, but Sampras, Agassi, Chang and Jim Courier replenished the major trophies and threw fewer tantrums, though whether that counts as a plus or a minus is a moot point. Courier, the "attacking ground-stroker" from Florida, retired in 1999. He won the French Open twice and the Australian Open twice, was a finalist at Wimbledon and the US Open, and rose to No 1 in the world.

Agassi, regarded as little more than a Las Vegas showman in his early days, is one of only five men to have won the four Grand Slam titles. A searing returner of serve, the 32-year-old former world No 1 was the epitome of fitness and ambition in winning the Australian Open for the fourth time last month.

Sampras, the classical serve-and-volleyer, has amassed more Grand Slam singles titles than any man in history (winning seven of them at Wimbledon) and was the year-ending world No 1 for a record six consecutive seasons.

Chang, the indefatigable retriever, was the first to make his mark, becoming the youngest ever Grand Slam men's singles champion by winning the French Open in 1989, aged 17 years and three months. If he had been better equipped to hold serve, he would have won more than one Grand Slam title. None the less, he was the world No 2 in 1996.

"I think that if Andre and Pete had stopped playing by now, I would have already retired," Chang says. He laboured through the past two seasons and finished last year ranked No 126, dropping out of the top 100 for the first time since 1987, his rookie season.

Does he think Sampras would have been wise to quit after last year's US Open triumph? "Every professional athlete's dream is to finish on a high note, and Pete's standard for playing is much higher than 95 per cent of people," Chang says. "Maybe he feels like he can go out and win another one, and by all means, if he feels like it, he ought to give himself the opportunity and he ought to go out and try. He doesn't have anything else to prove.

"What surprises me most is not so much that he's won all those Wimbledons, but that he was No 1 for six straight years. I envisioned Pete being a great player, but I never envisioned him being the kind of great player that he's become."

Chang smiles often when discussing the quartet's rivalries. "Should I start from when we were eight years old?" he says. "I grew up playing with these guys, so to me they're just 'Andre, Pete and Jim'. It's been a heck of a lot of fun to play with them all these years. Pete and I first played when we were eight years old, Andre when I was nine and he was 11, and Jim a little bit later. We've been able to inspire each other, and help each other play better tennis."

Chang, smaller than some ball boys today, was taller than Sampras when they were eight. "I was, and I'm proud of that," he chuckles. "I don't remember if I won the match or not. In the latter stages of our junior careers, I beat Pete probably 90 per cent of the time, and in the first few years when we were on tour, I won the first five or six times. It wasn't until he won the US Open in 1990 that he really started to beat me."

Sampras leads Chang, 12-8, Agassi has a 13-7 advantage, and Courier and Chang finished level, 12-12.

"The roughest times between us were when all four of us were at the top," Chang remembers. "I can recall hitting with Jim once on a practice court before the tournament started. Jim was like, 'Do you want to play a set?' And I said, 'Let's just hit and play some points.' I didn't want to give him any hints of how well I was playing that week, what my weaknesses were then. Now, at the end of our career, we've come to greet each other with a little more warmth."