Reader's question:  

But Sampras is retiring in graceful self-control. He plans to announce his retirement in a ceremony at the U.S. Open tonight, and a lot of people wonder why Sampras won't make more of the event, allow himself to be more elaborately feted. The simple answer is that Sampras doesn't need it. He doesn't need a last jolt of adrenaline or dose of adulation. He doesn't need a prolonged ego bath. He doesn't need more money, or trophies. He doesn't need any of the things that other athletes find it so hard to walk away from. He's content.

Could you explain "ego bath"?

My comments:

Ego is the self. Not the real self but the opinion one has of oneself.

In other words one's sense of self importance.

Often inflated, such as a person has when they want to indulge in an ego bath for long.

Bath? Yeah, in the tub where you submerge in water and have your body washed.

In the ego bath, you have your ego washed and massaged, and massaged, and massaged some more.

Kudos to Sampras, by the way, one of the greatest players to have ever taken up a tennis racket. He doesn’t need it.

In other words, he has self-esteem of the right kind, and – if you happen to have watched him play back in the day – has it in abundance.

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Off the shoulders

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Gold dust

Frugality fatigue

Red flag

Foregone conclusion

Call balls and strikes

Stare in the face

Cyber Monday

With a grain of salt

Drive home

Out of nowhere

Shove it under the carpet

the sky is the limit

hit it off

get my rib in my heart

With bells on

No harm, no foul

Pick up the slack

length and breadth of

get up to speed on something

Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網(wǎng)立場無關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學術(shù)問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.