Couch Q&A: Todd Martin on lessons from a life in tennis, battles with Pete Sampras, etc.

If Lansing’s Todd Martin had played tennis in today’s era, he’d have spent most of his career as the top American tennis player in the world.

Instead he played in a golden era of American tennis — with Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang. “The fifth Beatle,” Martin has described himself.

It’s closing in on two decades since that group, including Martin, finished playing its best tennis.

Martin’s trek was different than the others. He didn’t spend his teen years baking on hard courts at a Florida tennis academy. He played high school tennis at East Lansing — winning a state title at No. 1 singles in 1987 — and spent two years playing collegiately at Northwestern, before turning pro in 1990.

Martin, who lived in Lansing from age 10 until college, is now 48 years old and, since 2014, the CEO of the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. 

His initial breakout season came 25 years ago this summer, when he won his first tournament and cracked the top 15. A year earlier, the 6-foot-6 Martin had caught the eye of the tennis world when he took Sampras to five sets in a primetime third-round match at the U.S. Open. By 1994, Martin was on the world stage regularly.

Martin’s prime spanned 1994 to 2000, during which he reached two grand slam finals — the 1994 Australian Open and the 1999 U.S. Open — and made the semis of Wimbledon in 1994 and ’96 and the U.S. Open in ’94 and 2000.

He lost his Australian Open final to Sampras and the U.S. Open final to Agassi. Martin finished his career 5-13 vs. Agassi and 4-18 against Sampras.

“He truly dominated me,” Martin said of Sampras. “I just so happened to not be dominated the way I could have been dominated.”

His best shot at a grand slam title came in 1996 at Wimbledon, when his usual path through Sampras and Co. was cleared by upsets. Martin faced Malivai Washington in the semifinals, where he lost a fifth-set set lead and eventually the match. 

Martin’s connections to Lansing remain through his Todd Martin Youth Leadership charity — which aims to reach and help underprivileged children through tennis.

RELATED: Non-profit spotlight: Todd Martin Youth Leadership

On the eve of the Wimbledon finals, Martin, a husband and father of three, spoke about his roots, his path to and life in professional tennis, his battles with Sampras and his near misses at Wimbledon and elsewhere. Here’s that conversation:

Couch: When you watch Wimbledon or the US Open right now, do the juices still flow, do you miss it?

Martin: That’s two different questions. I don’t know necessarily if I miss it. Inevitably as an athlete there is that burn that says, ‘That was a great time, that was enjoyable and I loved the element of competition on these stages. Missing it represents a desire to still be there and I think it’s completely impossible to imagine. The sport’s changed so much, I’m old. It’s hard to imagine my body when it didn’t ache like it does now. But there are few times that I enjoy watching the sport than toward the end of the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. 

Q: I remember reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography about the aches and pains after a five-set match late in his career. Can you describe what that’s like?

A: Honestly it was different most times. There were times where I was starting to develop tendinitis somewhere, either my shoulder or my knee. If I was healthy and it was a burner of a match, it kind of felt like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to my quadriceps and to my gluts. I think that’s where the body felt differently. But I also felt emotionally there was a different element of recovery. Later in the career I wasn’t necessarily as emotionally invested. It just wasn’t exactly the same, because life had changed for me. But emotionally, there was a different toll from long matches. 

Q: One of my very early memories of watching you play was a 1992 second-round U.S. Open night match against Pete Sampras. You could feel the buzz around Court One in Lansing. How much do you remember that match and how much does it stick out as a seminal moment early in your career?

RELATED: L.A. Times in 2004: A quiet career exit for Todd Martin

A: I think I remember it well enough to suggest that it was the third round. I remember something, I never had him, but I would say and I think the observers on the day would say, I might have outplayed him for the majority of the match. And outplaying him might have been 51 to 49 (percent). But I want to say in the fifth set and I think I had break points and I tried to make something happen and made a couple errors.

My coach said something afterwards that I thought pretty interesting and probably got me to start thinking about that level of competition differently. When I had break points against Pete in a pressure situation, I felt, at that point in time, like I’ve got to do more. This is my opportunity now. His point was, ‘You’ve got his back against the wall. Make him do something special.’ I think hearing that, it stays with me to this day, 26 years later, hearing that was one of those subtle messages that, ‘You had better start looking at yourself as being imposing and at the level the guys you’re playing against are.’

Q: As you look back at your career, do you have any regrets, any match you really wish you could do over again? Would the 1996 Wimbledon semifinal against MaliVai Washington be it? 

A: If I lived in a vacuum, sure. However, there’s not one moment in my career that didn’t inform another moment. I would have loved to have won one more game earlier in that fifth set than I did against Mal. But at the same time, the best tennis I ever played came after that and, I think, in large part came after that because of what I learned about the game and myself by having gone through the miserable experience of squandering that (5-1 fifth-set) lead. So, regret, another swing at the ball doesn’t jibe real well with the way I approach life. But there are a few moments that do stick out where I say, ‘What if?’ I’m 48 years old and I’m married and have three kids. And those what-ifs back in the day have no bearing on who I am today and the family I’m a part of.

Q: You played in a golden age of tennis and American tennis. What are your thoughts on where the sport is in this country and what it would take to get another era like that?

A: You check the junior draws out, the boys and girls draws, at Wimbledon. Just count the number of U.S. flags more than it’s ever been or that it’s been for a very, very long time. I think that is a pretty good indication of the potential we have. That said, to be good at 16, 17, 18 is one thing. Everybody in the game wants to be great at 26, 27, 28. And that’s a long time. Those 10 years of continued pursuit after a pretty singular obsession are difficult. And improvement, you've seen historically, and improvement as a young adult is not a forgone conclusion.

I think what it really requires is special kids who have a burning passion for the sport that is not vulnerable. My game was vulnerable at times. My body was vulnerable at times. But my passion for the sport never waned. And I would say, for the most part, that was something that the American greats that I played with shared with me. (Andre) Agassi obviously had a little of an up-and-down there, but once he transformed himself, he was pretty darn persistent. And if you look at the dominance of today (Roger) Federer and (Rafael) Nadal, there are no two individuals who have maintained a passion for what they do better than those two. If there’s one thing, it’s making sure the kids’ passion can just persist. And then grow the sport. The more kids that play at the grassroots and youth levels, the better prospect we have in the long run of having good professional players.

Q: Did you ever play Roger Federer?

A: I did. I played him in Davis Cup in 2001 in Switzerland. I loved playing him. He was just getting into the higher rankings, probably top 25 or so. And I was making my way down that way also. So we might have been similarly ranked at the time. I had no idea how good he was going to be. I knew he was very good then and I knew he was going to be much better. No clue what was to come. And also no idea what an amazing ambassador he’d be for the sport. 

Q: Who was the most difficult player for your style that you faced? I know Stephan Edberg and Boris Becker were still playing at a high level, too, early in your career.

A: In spite of beating Pete (Sampras) a few times and even with maybe having a winning record against him over the last couple of years of his career, I always joke (that) I beat him four times, (but) don’t ask me how many times I played him. Because he truly dominated me. I just so happened to not be dominated the way I could have been dominated. And the matches I won, they were all close and most of the matches he won were close, as well. He, for me, was just the best competitor we had on the tour. And he so happened to have the talent that exceeded everybody, as well. But Pete, for me, when it was important, you knew what he was going to do and it didn’t matter. It was no longer predicable, it was intimidating.

Q: What would you consider the highlight of your career?

A: There’s no one moment. There are moments where I lost that I’ll remember forever. Losing to Agassi in the final of the U.S. Open in 1999. Losing to Pat Rafter that same summer in Boston in the 100th anniversary of the Davis Cup in five sets — those two matches are two of the better matches and more memorable and impactful moments of my career. And then there’s a tournament I won in Barcelona, which was the first tournament I’d won after I had elbow surgery and after my dad had passed away, and on my worst surface and against some of the best clay-courters in the world. And then a number of other matches that were really impactful, but it’s really hard for me to single one out. And I thank God that’s the case, because to me that does mean I had a very full career.

Q: You hear stories about the upbringings and fathers of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf and the tennis academies in Bradenton, Fla., etc., and you had for the most part an East Lansing life, played some college tennis at Northwestern. What are the advantages to your trek? 

A: Well, one of the advantages is that I’m gainfully employed now. My parents approached my sister’s and my childhood, I would say, with not necessarily an obsession, but a real commitment to ensuring their children were well-rounded and that that my sister and I would be able to have a choice as to what we would want to do when it became time to becoming our own adults.

At the same time, they put us in a position to find our passions and pretty much held us to a standard of enjoying what we did extracurricularly or not doing it. And pouring our hearts into those passions or not doing them. And I think it’s those elements of balance through my early adulthood that laid the ground work for everything I accomplished on and off the court and also preserved my passion for the game much longer than pretty much anybody I know.

Q: What made you decide to do the Tennis Hall of Fame and take on that challenge of being its CEO?

A: Greatest priority for me is to make an impact in the sport that I’ve taken so much from and leading this organization is not necessarily a reflection on me always, but being able to serve this organization gives me the gratification that I am serving the sport and I do feel like the Hall of Fame has the ability to really influence the future of the game, because there is so much inspiration that it is formed around.

Q: How often to do you get back to the Lansing area?

A: About annually. I still have the charity there — Todd Martin Youth Leadership that is doing better and better work after 25 years now. And so I’m back to help fundraise for that typically every fall. I’ve probably missed a couple of falls here in the last handful of years. We’ll be back again, I think, in October.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch

Todd Martin file 
Age: 48
ATP career titles: 8
Grand Slam finals: 2 (Australian Open 1994, U.S. Open 1999)
Highest world ranking: No. 4, 1999
Career prize money: $8.2 million
Years playing: 1990-2004
Hometown: Lansing
High School: East Lansing, Class of 1988
Current job: CEO of the Tennis Hall of Fame, Newport, Rhode Island