>On 7/16/2017 1:28 PM, Makarand Patil wrote:
> There was also a tinge of bitterness in Pete's victories later on in his career (as if he was showing a middle finger to the media and >the public).
I Agree. IMO, Pete clearly had a chip on his shoulder about the media
later in his career, and the sad thing is, it wasn't because of
criticism. The media coverage of Pete while he was on top was almost
uniformly positive.
The problem, I think, was that in Sampra's view, there just wasn't
enough of it. Pete grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s, when tennis was
huge in the USA and its top players, like Mac, Connors, and Borg, were
as famous as any athletes in any sports. But by Pete's time, tennis had
declined significantly in popularity, and he didn't like how his
exploits were not massively publicized. I remember in early 1996, he was
miffed that after playing heroically to beat Russia and win the 1995
Davis Cup, there was virtually no fanfare about it in the press. And I
recall that circa 2000, when "best of the 90s" lists were being drawn
up, it irked him that Michael Jordan, and not himself, was universally
spoken of as the top USA athlete of that decade. Heck, it even bothered
him that Agassi garnered more media coverage, and was paid more by Nike,
despite winning far less then him.
All of that added up to the sour disposition Pete had about the press,
in a meta-sense, his last few years on tour. I think he expected a
Beyonce/Madonna sized spotlight on himself, and he believed his
accomplishments had earned him the right to be lauded like one of the
greatest athletes of all time.