"I was groping for something to get me out of the negative space" - When Pete Sampras recalled reading a letter from his wife during a changeover
Pete Sampras revealed that he read a letter written by his wife Bridgette Wilson during a changeover at Wimbledon in 2002.
Sampras is among the greatest tennis players of all time and dominated the game in his prime. The American was a menace on grass courts and won Wimbledon seven times throughout his illustrious career.
His final appearance at the grass-court Major came in 2002, when he faced Switzerland's George Bastl in the second round.
Sampras wrote in his book, "A Champion's Mind," that his wife Bridgette Wilson wrote him a letter before the match and tucked it into his racket bag. The former World No. 1 claimed that he read the letter in the locker room before the start of the match but was distracted at the time.
Sampras said that he eventually read the letter again during a changeover in his match against Bastl.
"Bridgette had written me a letter before the match, and tucked it into my racket bag. I read it in the locker room, but I was a little distracted before I went out to play and it didn’t really sink in very well," Sampras said.
"So at one point in the Bastl match, I had a bizarre urge to reread her letter; clearly, I was groping for something, anything to get me out of the negative space I was in. I pulled the letter out on a changeover and started to read it again," he added.
Sampras wrote that the letter was one of support and inspiration and that his wife told him to remember who he was.
"The first line was, 'To my husband, the seven-time Wimbledon champ...' It was a letter of support and inspiration, in which Bridgette basically told me to remember who I was, and that this — playing tennis — was what I did best, and the thing I most cared about," Pete Sampras said.
"Bridgette's kind, loving words had the opposite effect" - Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras further claimed that he tried to believe what his wife wrote in the letter but the words had the opposite effect on him. He stated that the letter freaked him out and he was unable to draw any inspiration from his wife's kind words.
"I tried to believe those words, I tried to take heart. I wish I had been able to read them, take a deep breath, and go out there and start serving bombs and drilling passing shots. But I was so mired in misery that I couldn’t do it. Bridgette’s kind, loving words had the opposite effect," Sampras said.
"When I absorbed the words, the letter kind of freaked me out; I had the sensation that my world was falling apart and thought, How could this be happening to me? I was incapable of mustering my pride or drawing inspiration from that sweet gesture by the woman I loved."
Pete Sampras eventually went on to lose 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4 to Bastl, thus suffering his joint-worst outing at Wimbledon since losing in the first round in 1990.