Pete Sampras popped down to the local ankle specialist on Wednesday night for an MRI scan. That alone sent a shiver of fear through the Wimbledon committee room. That he expects to play but cannot confirm that he will be fully fit against unseeded Justin Gimelstob heightens an already fraught sense of heavyweight presence in the top half of the men's draw.
Gimelstob, from New Jersey has never taken a set from Sampras. In that light Sampras, too, must have had a look at his path towards what would be an historic 13th Grand Slam title and contemplated the seedless wasteland before him. Not much brings a smile to the face of the favourite.
With four rounds remaining before a champion is crowned and the only seeded player between Sampras and the final being number nine Thomas Enqvist, the feeling is that even if he contracted the ebola virus Sampras still stands a fighting chance of advancing.
The question is whether he can tough it out. The diagnosis is that a tendon on his left shin is inflamed, has a fluid build-up and is currently stiff and sore. So is Sampras a whimp or will he play through it ?
With the player receiving treatment, his trainer Paul Annacone explained. "Compared to other people his tolerance is very high. Probably compared to a lot of footballers, they're saying `what's the big problem.' But everything is relative. Give me five minutes and I could argue the other side to you," he said.
Sampras has already shown significant durability. He played through a shoulder injury in 1995 to win the championships and on another occasion was crowned champion with an ankle complaint.
"He won one year when he had a really bad ankle. I don't even know if you guys knew about it when he didn't even hit the days between the semis or finals," said Annacone. "I think it was the year when he beat Goran (Ivanisevic) in the final in three sets. I think maybe his first year."
A principal mental attribute of Sampras is that he is good at worrying about who he plays next. He has even introduced a new phrase into the tennis lexicon based on his final set against Karol Kucera in the last round. It's called the "stumble volley." He serves big, first and second, then hobbles to the net to kill off the point.
Andrei Agassi earned a break in his opening match against the big serving unseeded Todd Martin before handing it back in a limp 6-2 second set. Agassi then took the third set before rain arrived at 8.30 p.m. and the match was abandoned, much to the annoyance of the number two seed. Martin was up a break in the fourth set before Alan Mills emerged to abandon play.
Agassi was irate because the decision was made after he fell. His feeling was that for safety reasons it should have been terminated as soon as the rain began.
On Centre Court, Tim Henman steadied local nerves with a refreshing 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over Arnaud Clement. Despite the ritual failure of the number eight seed to live up to local expectations, Greg Rusedski's crash and burn in the first round has seen to it that Henman carries more baggage than usual.
Although he lost his serve twice in the match, Henman, for once, cut a relaxed figure afterwards.
"You look at the results, the standard drops fractionally and they're out. You've just got to try and keep plugging away," he said. "To come through in straight sets is a good win for me. I need to keep the consistency up."
Fifth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov stumbled to Thomas Johansson 6-1, 7-6, 6-4, which may benefit the successful Pat Rafter over the next two rounds. Rafter was untroubled by Todd Woodbridge, winning 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 and advances into a blizzard of unseeded players.
In the light of a number of high profile injuries to Sampras, the Williams sisters, Rafter himself and Andre Agassi, the Australian went on to agree that the schedule is too heavy. "It's a tough schedule, no doubt about it," said Rafter. "I'm just saying that the tour has to come to some sort of agreement on the schedule that gives us some time off. The US Open was a pretty classic example of over play by a lot of the players."
