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© The All England Lawn Tennis
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With seven Wimbledon Championships - 14 Grand Slam titles
in all – Pete Sampras has the most outstanding record
of any of the men's Champions. Although the records and
statistics are the dry proof that Sampras was king in his
time at the All England Club, sport is not just about
numbers. What grips us, the lucky few who get to sit at
the court side, is the passion, the fear, the blood, sweat
and tears that separates the players from the champions
and the champions from the truly great.
Passion? Sampras? Oh, my, yes. Sampras was never the most
expressive or effusive of characters on court, but there
was a fire in him that burned brightly and scorched all
who came near it. His whole life was devoted to achieving
greatness and then hanging on to it. For six years between
1993 and 1998 his every waking moment was consumed with
the thought of winning and maintaining his position as world
No. 1. He did it, too.
During that spell, he won five of his Wimbledon titles
together with three US Open and two Australian Open trophies.
But it was here at Wimbledon that he felt most at home.
Here he was in his comfort zone, here he had a head start
on any opposition. The mere fact of playing the great Sampras
reduced all but the best to tatters and gave him a few points
in the bag before the match had even begun.
Every year he would come to London from the French Open
looking grim. He could never win in Paris and the fact hurt.
But as soon as he walked through the gates of the All England
Club his spirits lifted and he became a different man. He
won here when he was injured, he won when his form was at
its lowest and he won when his critics had written him off.
Put Pete on Centre Court and he was unstoppable. On one
leg and in a blindfold and he was still unstoppable.
Then there were the occasions when Pete was in his pomp.
The 1999 final against Andre Agassi was possibly the greatest
display of grass court tennis that Wimbledon has ever seen.
Sampras had stumbled around the circuit for the first half of
the year, winning nothing and looking miserable but then
he went through that Lazarus moment as he returned to the
grass. He won at Queen's and then began his campaign for
The Championships.
Round by round he gathered momentum until he was ready
for Agassi. His fellow American had just won the French
Open, he was the story of the moment having hauled himself
back from a ranking of 141 and reinvented himself as a champion.
Agassi was at his peak. And in the first set he had the temerity
to manufacture three break points on the Sampras serve.
That was it. That was the moment Sampras moved from champion
to genius. He snatched back the break points and then took
off. For a couple of minutes Agassi shook his head and tried
to work out what had happened but by then the first set was
gone and he was a break down in the second. It was not that
Agassi was playing badly, it was just that Sampras was sublime.
"Today he walked on water," Agassi said later.
Sampras said simply: "Sometimes I surprise myself."
He ended the match on a second service ace - naturally.
He was back the next year for his last Championship victory
at Wimbledon, beating Pat Rafter in an emotional rollercoaster
of a Final. He came to London on the back of a serious back
injury and not having won anything since March and again
his chances were not great. He had even been beaten at Queen's
two weeks before but still Wimbledon worked its magic on
the man. And him on it. Even the tendinitis that had almost
felled him in the early rounds was shaken off as Sampras
wrote his own chapter in the history books.
It carried his tally of Grand Slams to 13, breaking Roy
Emerson's record and establishing Sampras as one of the
truly great figures of the game. That was one of the rare
times he allowed the world to witness the pent up emotion
that he had hidden for more than a decade. As the last point
was played, he burst into tears and then raced off to embrace
his parents seated high up in the stands.
In his last game before retiring, Sampras defeated Andre
Agassi in the 2002 US Open final to total 14 Grand Slam
titles in all.
Written by Alix Ramsey
PETE SAMPRAS
Singles Champion: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
