SPORT / Forget the rest, who were the best in '93?: Tennis: Stylist serving up the perfect game - Pete Sampras

FEW cheers are anticipated, let alone a standing ovation, in response to your correspondent's nomination of Pete Sampras, the world No 1 and champion of Wimbledon and the United States Open, as the best tennis player of 1993. Big serve, good volley, pity about the lack of personality, writes John Roberts.

To be fair, the season was largely devoid of spectacular performances until its climax. Petr Korda then summoned astounding reserves of energy and inspiration to defeat Sampras and Michael Stich, the world No 2, on consecutive days in Munich to win the Compaq Grand Slam Cup and a cheque for dollars 1.625m (pounds 1.1m).

In the two weeks previous to that, Stich had captivated the German public and taken Boris Becker's place as a national hero. With Becker elsewhere, contemplating marriage, fatherhood, and a liaison with a new coach, Nick Bollettieri, Stich supplanted his compatriot as the ATP Tour champion in Frankfurt and then went on to Dusseldorf to lead his country to victory against Australia in the Davis Cup final.

Korda and Stich not only qualified to be contenders for player of the year, they deserved the gratitude of everybody associated with the sport for timely reminders that gimmicks are no substitute for the game's inherent skills and dramas.

Most dramatic was Jana Novotna's loss of nerve at Wimbledon when leading Steffi Graf, the defending champion and world No 1, 4-1, 40-30 in the final set of the women's final. Instead of accomplishing tennis's greatest win of 1993, a tearful Novotna featured in the most memorable photograph as she was comforted by the Duchess of Kent.

Though Graf won every title of note except the Australian Open, her results were achieved in the absence of Monica Seles, the victim of a stabbing. And while Mary Joe Fernandez's capitulation to Graf was nowhere near the scale of Novotna's, the American did come close to winning the French Open.

Sergi Bruguera had his moment at the French, seizing the opportunity when Jim Courier began to wilt in the fifth set of the final. The contented Spaniard then virtually slipped from view.

The point about Sampras is that when he first became the world No 1 in April, he was criticised because he did not possess a Grand Slam title, the true measure of stature. His rise had much to do with the vagaries of the rankings system, and he delivered his answer in two parts, first at Wimbledon and then at Flushing Meadow.

Sampras and Courier both served too well for the Wimbledon final to be memorable, though Sampras earned his success at the All England Club just as much as his victory in New York, where the fancied contenders evaporated, leaving the Frenchman Cedric Pioline to face the closing shots.

There were occasions when Sampras's play was near perfection: the closing sets (6-1, 6-1) against Michael Chang in the quarter-finals of the US Open, after the pair had split tie-breaks, and the 6-3, 6-0 demolition of Andrei Medvedev in the semi-finals of the ATP Tour Championship.

(Photograph omitted)