Sampras at pinnacle after defeat of Pioline

PISTOL-whipped by the Sampras kid. There's few worse fates than this in professional tennis.

Just ask Cedric Pioline. He squared up to the American in yesterday's Wimbledon championship final hoping to improve on a somewhat disheartening 0-7 record against the world number one but instead found himself the helpless victim of another dismantling.

Having come from a set down to heat Michael Stich on Friday and earn his place in the final, the Frenchman never looked capable of getting the upper hand this time against a man who, with relentless determination, was chasing his fourth championship title here.

Stich said after their thrilling five-set encounter that if the 28-year- old from Paris could reproduce the sort of form he had shown in the semi- final, then he would have every chance of upsetting Sampras in the decider. Stich cautioned, however, that he didn't believe that he could.

The former champion was to be proven correct as Pioline, just like Malivai Washington in the final 12 months ago against Richard Krajicek, found that, particularly when you lack a blistering service, the exertion of clambering through to the title decider leaves little in reserve to fight the biggest battle of all.

The service return which had so effectively unhinged the games of Stich and Greg Rusedski was not able to cope with the finely-honed power of Sampras; the seemingly flawless net game, especially on the backhand displayed in earlier rounds, was suddenly riddled with errors.

It was to be expected that the Parisian would make more errors because Sampras had been playing superbly for much of the past two weeks. Particularly so behind his own service which his six previous opponents had managed to break just twice between them in 104 attempts.

Not much changed yesterday. The 25-year-old from Florida dropped just seven service points through the opening two sets of a disappointingly one- sided final. He survived unbroken to the end of a 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 win despite an increasingly desperate assault by the world number 44 (he will soar to somewhere just outside the top 10 after this) during the closing stages.

In those opening sets Sampras's speed and strength were electrifying with more than 90 per cent of service points won, 12 aces sent crashing past the Frenchman and 20 clean winners produced from every part of the court.

Pioline did what he could to cope and, although he certainly never threatened to break, he served well enough to keep things on a respectable footing.

That hadn't seemed likely after the third game when, having just about glimpsed a scorching return as it whizzed past him down the line, the Frenchman surrendered the game by sending what had looked to be a fairly routine back-hand volley crashing into the net.

"That was the worst thing that could have happened to me, to lose my serve so early and then to be chasing him from then on, which is very difficult," admitted the unseeded Frenchman. His only previous appearance in a Grand Slam final, at the US Open in 1993, also ended in defeat at the hands of Sampras.

Remarkably, at break-point in the fifth game of the second set he slipped up on precisely the same shot. Two games later the story was similar.

Overall, though, his game actually appeared to be slightly improving. But once the big American had wrapped up the set from 30-30 in the next game with a big serve and then a winning backhand volley into the corner, there didn't seem to be any way back for the rank outsider.

Already a break down from the third game of the final set, he did at last threaten Sampras's serve, earning a first and only break of his own in the eighth game. It slipped away, however, when an inviting return of a second serve was gratefully put away by the American.

Within a matter of minutes the Czech Open champion was finished off; Sampras clinched victory after just over an hour and a half on court when the return of serve played wide to Pioline's forehand landed well outside the tramlines.

The victory brings Pete Sampras's tally of Grand Slam titles into double figures, drawing him level with Bill Tilden and just two short of the record set by Australian Roy Emerson during the sixties.

"To have won 10 by the time I am 25 really surprises me and it definitely makes me feel that the target of 12 in a lot more realistic," said Sampras following his latest win.

"That's the best I've served in my career (the American produced 17 aces in the match and 119 in the championships) and probably the best I've ever played in a Slam. People think that 25 is old in this game," he continued "because that's when Borg retired and it's around the time that McEnroe won his last Grand Slam title but I really feel I can still become a better player and keep going for a lot more years to COME

Also hoping to better himself after these championships in Pioline who, after a barrage of questions regarding the greatness of the man who had just beaten him exclaimed "yes, he's the number one and he's playing well.

"He beat me in three sets out there today, there is no disputing that but he is not God, I will learn from this match, go away and improve my game in the hope that I will win the next time we meet."

Asked subsequently if he had enjoyed his two weeks here, he broke into a grin, "at last, thank you for that question, yes I have played a good tournament and have proven to myself that I can play at the highest level so I think, even after today, I can go home happy with what I have achieved here this year."

Not so happy, one suspects however, as Pete Sampras. Having shaken off the challenge of Michael Chang at the top of the rankings ladder and overcome the emotional stress he suffered after the death of his coach Tim Gullikson last year, he is once again looking like one of the greatest players of all time.

The lack of a French title still frustrates him although even if that particular milestone does manage to evade him, there still seems likely to be plenty of others in store for the Washington-born star who looks set to continue his domination of this sport to the end of the millennium and then some.