Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players in history, celebrated for his powerful serve and exceptional volleying skills. Born on August 12, 1971, in Washington, D.C., to Greek immigrant parents, Sampras showed remarkable talent from a young age, transitioning from an amateur player to a professional at age sixteen. Over his illustrious career, he won fourteen Grand Slam titles, including a record seven Wimbledon championships, and was ranked as the world's top player for six consecutive years. His rivalry with fellow American player Andre Agassi became a highlight of the tennis world, characterized by contrasting styles and memorable matches.
Despite facing challenges, including a genetic predisposition to thalassemia, Sampras excelled in high-pressure situations, famously winning the 1995 Australian Open quarterfinal shortly after learning of his coach's terminal illness. Known for his unassuming demeanor and sportsmanship, he maintained a low profile off the court, which contrasted with the flashy personalities of some of his contemporaries. After retiring in 2003, he left behind an impressive legacy, including a career win-loss record of 762-222. Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2007, Sampras remains a significant figure in the history of sports, admired for both his athletic accomplishments and his professionalism.
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Pete Sampras
American tennis player
- Born: August 12, 1971
- Place of Birth: Washington, D.C.
Widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Sampras was known for his powerful and accurate serve and his volley. He won fourteen Grand Slam titles and finished as the top-ranked player in the world six consecutive times, a record for men’s professional tennis at the time of his retirement in 2003.
Early Life
Pete Sampras was born on August 12, 1971, in Washington, DC, to Greek immigrants Sam and Georgia Sampras. He spent his early years in Potomac, Maryland, where his father worked as a civil aerospace engineer for the US Air Force, then moved to Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California when his father took a job in the civilian aviation industry.
Sampras was an outstanding athlete as a child, and he had a naturally powerful tennis game. By age eleven he learned a game tactic that would mark him as a player to watch: the serve and volley. His coach was Pete Fischer, a pediatrician, who would encourage Sampras to change his two-handed backhand into a one-handed shot, increasing his chances of winning.
By the time Sampras was twelve years old he was playing in a division for older boys and was winning. In 1987 he played in the Boys 18 Tournament, sponsored by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), and placed second in singles but lost in the finals to Michael Chang. After making it to the third round of the Newsweek Championship Cup several weeks later, Sampras accepted $7,000 in prize money, which changed his status from amateur to professional. At age sixteen, in 1988, Sampras began his professional career ranked 311 among professional male players.
Life’s Work
After a slow start as a professional player, Sampras made it to the fourth round of the Australian Open in January 1990 and earned his first professional victory in February at the US Pro Indoors in Philadelphia. Several months later he defeated Andre Agassi and became, at age nineteen, the youngest men’s singles player to win the US Open tournament. The rivalry between Sampras and Agassi captured the attention of the tennis world for the next ten years. Sampras followed up his 1990 US Open victory by winning the first Grand Slam Cup, an event that features the top sixteen finishers of the year’s Grand Slam events.
In 1992, Sampras began working with a new coach, Tim Gullikson, a former top-ten player who insisted that Sampras spend more time on the slower clay courts, where he would be less dependent on his serve and could focus instead on winning points with good ground strokes and strategy. Sampras reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, and he made it to the semifinals at Wimbledon before losing to Goran Ivanisevic. At the US Open, Sampras lost to Stefan Edberg in the finals after playing with a stomach problem. Although he did not win a Grand Slam tournament during 1992, he did win five titles and seventy matches, and he earned more than $1.5 million for the year.
Sampras reached the number-one ranking for the first time in 1993, then won Wimbledon and the US Open. He also became the first male player to serve more than one thousand aces in a season. The following year, 1994, he won a career-high ten titles and compiled a personal best twenty-nine-match winning streak. From 1993 to 1998, he won ten Grand Slam titles, including three US Opens and two Australian Opens.
The fast-playing grass courts favored Sampras’s style of tennis, and it was on the grass courts at Wimbledon that he felt most at home. He won seven Wimbledon titles in his career, the most of any male player at the time. For his last championship victory at Wimbledon, he defeated Pat Rafter in an exciting final. His seventh Wimbledon victory was also his thirteenth Grand Slam title, breaking Roy Emerson’s record of twelve Grand Slam titles.
Sampras’s career also included numerous injuries, and he revealed he has a genetic trait that predisposes him to thalassemia, a blood disorder that leads to anemia, which is common to those with a Mediterranean background. Although the thalassemia made him anemic and fatigued at times, he did not reveal the condition until very late in his career. In 1995, Sampras was faced with a personal tragedy while playing at the Australian Open. Prior to his quarterfinal match with Jim Courier, Sampras found out that Gullikson, his coach and good friend, had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. A fan in the stands had called out for Sampras to “do it for your coach,” and Sampras answered with an emotional comeback, defeating Courier in five sets. Unfortunately, Sampras lost in the semifinals.
The Sampras-Agassi rivalry, which began when the two were just children, often brought out the best in both players. They had played against each other in a 1979 junior tournament in Northridge, California. Sampras’s career matchups with Agassi proved to be a contrast in styles. Sampras was low-keyed in his behavior, dress, and demeanor, whereas Agassi had long hair, wore trendy clothing, and had a gregarious personality. Notable Sampras-Agassi matches of 1995 included the finals of the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Rogers Cup, and the US Open, with Sampras winning at Indian Wells and the US Open. The two players traded the number-one ranking several times that year.
The 1995 US Open men’s singles final between Sampras and Agassi was the highest-rated tennis match for an American television audience at the time. However, the most memorable Sampras-Agassi match came in a US Open quarterfinal in 2001. Sampras battled to a 6–7, 7–6, 7–6, 7–6 victory. There were no breaks of serve during the entire match. The second highest-rated match between the two was the final of the US Open in 2002, in which Sampras won, recording his fourteenth and final Grand Slam victory. This match also was his last as a player. After much speculation, Sampras retired from tennis in 2003.
During his fifteen years on the tennis circuit, Sampras compiled a 762–222 record, winning more than 77 percent of all the professional matches he played. He won singles titles in eleven different countries. He won sixty-four top-level singles titles, including fourteen Grand Slams, eleven Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters Series titles, and two doubles titles. With seven titles at Wimbledon, five at the US Open, and two at the Australian Open, only the slower clay courts of the French Open denied Sampras a Grand Slam championship there. Tennis magazine named him the greatest player of the years 1965 through 2005, and he earned $43 million in prize money over his career.
Whether Sampras was the greatest male player in the history of tennis remains a topic of discussion. Jimmy Connors played over a longer period and won many more titles, and John McEnroe compiled a better Davis Cup record. Rod Laver won two Grand Slams one as an amateur and one as a professional and won the French Open twice, while Sampras failed to win the French Open in thirteen attempts. More than five years after Sampras's retirement, in 2009, Swiss player Roger Federer broke Sampras's record of fourteen Grand Slam titles, while in 2021 Sampras himself titled Novak Djokovic the greatest player of all time. Sampras was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame on January 17, 2007, and the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame in August 2013.
Sampras married American actor and former Miss Teen USA, Bridgette Wilson, in 2000. Their first son, Christian Charles, was born in 2002 and their second son, Ryan Nikolaos, was born in 2005. In 2023, Sampras announced that his wife was battling ovarian cancer.
Significance
Sampras likely will be remembered for his dominating style of tennis. His trademark move was the running cross-court forehand, and he had an excellent volley. His serve is considered to have been of the most powerful and most accurate. Also, he possessed perhaps the best overhead smash in the history of the men’s game. His unemotional but powerful game was built on a serve that crossed the net at up to 130 miles per hour and was backed up by excellent ground strokes and precise serve-and-volley skills. Added to his physical abilities was the single-minded determination to win, which made him one of the greatest players in the game.
As an individual Sampras was humble, polite, professional, and provided no controversial distractions on or off the court. His low-key demeanor and sportsmanlike behavior kept him from becoming a major celebrity, and the press believed that he lacked charisma, but his stature as one of the greatest of tennis players and his determined work ethic prove best his significance to the history of not only professional tennis but also professional sports.
Bibliography
Bauman, Paul. Agassi and Ecstasy. New York: Bonus, 2000. Print.
Boughn, Michael. Pete Sampras. London: Warwick, 1999. Print.
Branham, H. A. Sampras: A Legend in the Works. New York: Bonus, 2000. Print.
Crouse, Karen. "A Tennis King Content to Stay Home." The New York Times, 28 June 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/sports/tennis/29sampras.html. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
Drucker, Joel. “Match Point: His Glory Days Fading, Tennis’s Pete Sampras Seeks One Last Hurrah.” Los Angeles Times Magazine Sept. 2002. 50–54. Print.
Sampras, Pete, and Peter Bodo. A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis. New York: Three Rivers, 2009. Print.
"Tennis Icon Pete Sampras Reveals Hollywood Star Wife’s Devastating News." Fox Sports, 30 Oct. 2023, www.foxsports.com.au/tennis/tennis-icon-pete-sampras-reveals-hollywood-star-wifes-devastating-news/news-story/71f2337db294f4236561b5f42eba9b34. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
Vercelletto, Niko. "Pete Sampras Calls Novak Djokovic the 'Greatest of All Time.'" Tennis, 17 Nov. 2021, www.tennis.com/baseline/articles/pete-sampras-calls-novak-djokovic-the-greatest-of-all-time. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.