Wounded Sampras bites back

The fear was that Pete Sampras, like Miss Otis, might announce that he was unable to lunch. He had been reluctant to be first up on centre court yesterday. But despite last Saturday's injury scare the great man duly turned up at around teatime to win his first-round match 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 against Britain's Martin Lee. There was no trainer in sight, only some supporting tape around his right ribs. Lee, the British No3, would have preferred it if the American's right arm had been pinioned.

This was not - at least as yet - the Sampras of old. Had Lee managed to continue the momentum he built up in the second set into the tie-break, a real battle might have ensued. Last year another British left-hander, Barry Cowan, pushed Sampras to five sets in the second round, but Lee lost the tie-break tamely, 7-1. Thereafter his resolve was admirable but ultimately hopeless.

Sampras, the seven-times Wimbledon champion and holder of a record 13 grand slam titles, entered this year's tournament in the worst shape of his life. The physical worries were the least of his problems. Disregarding the World Team Cup, an overblown exhibition which serves as a gentle warm-up for the French Open, Sampras had won only one competitive match since late April after he lost the final of the Houston tournament against his fellow American Andy Roddick. To put it bluntly, his confidence was shot to little pieces.

Before the Houston event, and to the astonishment of everybody, he had been beaten on grass by the Spanish clay-court specialist Alex Corretja in the Davis Cup. Then, amid considerable acrimony, Sampras turned down a wild card for Queen's and played the pre-Wimbledon tournament in Halle instead. If he thought this might change his luck he was wrong. Sampras recorded a scratchy first-round victory in Germany over the Russian Andrei Stoliarov, but then lost to the wayward home player Nicolas Kiefer. Things could not get much worse.

The relief for all ills is, of course, to draw a British player (other than Tim Henman or Greg Rusedski) in the first round and, as Sampras's match against Lee unfolded, it was perfectly clear that the former world No1 was using his opponent, and the surroundings he knows so well, to hit himself back to something approaching form.

"Picnic hampers and other bulky packages must not be taken into the stands" a notice warned. Nobody mentioned being weighed down with history, but Lee must have hoped Sampras's nerve might crack if he jemmied the right spot.

In the first set Lee often returned extremely well as Sampras struggled for consistency on his serve - here an ace, there a double fault. But although the American's hair now resembles a carpet the moths have got the better of, the holes in his game are still capable of repair, although there will be those who will test him much more severely than Lee in the coming days.

Lee had two second-set points on the Sampras serve at 6-5, but when he most needed it the No6 seed found his best, as if from memory. "I had a little more inkling in the second set where he was going to serve, but he was still hitting them at 128mph on occasions," said Lee, one of five British players out of seven to lose yesterday, with James Auckland withdrawing one hour before his Wimbledon debut with a David Beckham-type foot injury.

The Sampras serve remains a thing of near-lethal beauty, those sitting beneath the Royal Box scoreboard having to sway out of the way when he pummelled it in their direction. But the centre court appears considerably slower this year, due to a combination of the slightly larger ball used these days and the rye grass seed which binds the grass more securely. Henman, who starts his campaign today on court one against the French qualifier Jean-Francois Bachelot, has already remarked on the attempts to slow the game down on grass, and is not wildly happy about it as it takes the impetus away from those, like him, who are anxious to kill off a point at the net.

When Sampras last won the title two years ago - and he has not won a tournament from that day to this - he was troubled by a shin injury. He was asked if his current rib injury reminded him of that triumphant year.

"The injury's fine," he said, "it didn't affect my game. Two years ago it was a little more serious. This is not anywhere near in the same ballpark, but playing later helped me out a bit."

The late Pete Sampras? Not yet.