Points won by each set: 94-92 [ 36-30, 23-34, 35-28 ]
Points won directly on serve:
40 % Sampras – 30 of 75
27 % Chang – 30 of 111

A hard fought small title of Sampras which helped him to regain the No. 1 in the world surpassing Thomas Muster. The American was within a tie-break of shocking defeats to inferior serve-and-volleyers (Prinosil, Siemerink), players he defeated 8 times in total, and only in HG ’96 he dropped sets against them. He played four consecutive matches against S&V’ers. Then in the final, against an excellent baseliner, he was seven points away from loss serving at 4-all (0/15) in the 3rd set. He converted his first match point after a spectacular rally in which he lobbed Chang [4] with a backhand volley. Each of his three difficult matches lasted around two hours.

Sampras’ route to his 39th title:
1 Sebastien Lareau 6-1, 3-6, 6-1
2 Patrick Rafter 6-3, 7-6(1)
Q David Prinosil 6-7(2), 7-6(3), 6-3
S Jan Siemerink 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(2)
W Michael Chang 6-4, 3-6, 6-4