For many players at the United States Open, it all started the first week of January, maybe in Australia, maybe in Qatar, definitely after an off-season they hoped would be longer. That is when the long haul of the professional tennis season began, starting a seemingly never-ending timetable of tension-filled tournaments, tedious travel and, for...
Ten years ago, nobody knew that American tennis was close to being broken. To make the case that the sport here was alive and kicking, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi played a quarterfinal match at the United States Open in which neither broke serve. It was Wednesday night of the second week, days before the city's downtown skyline and the nation's...
Rafael Nadal was working his way into a point about tennis rivalries. It was near the end of the third day of the Wimbledon Championships in late June, and Nadal, an hour or so earlier, efficiently dispensed with his second-round opponent, the hard-hitting but chronically inconsistent American Ryan Sweeting, in straight sets. Now, freshly showered,...
Pete Sampras (født 12. august 1971 i Washington D.C., USA) er en amerikansk tidligere tennisspiller, der indstillede karrieren efter sin 14. Grand Slam-titel i efteråret 2002.
Af de i alt 14 vundne Grand Slam-titler, så er de syv vundet i Wimbledon (1993-1995, 1997-2000). Ingen spillere har vundet lige så mange titler som Sampras, og han betragtes af mange som verdens bedste tennisspiller nogensinde, idet han også har ligget flest uger som nr. 1 i verden. Sampras fik dog aldrig vundet French Open (der spilles på grus), men nåede semifinalen i 1996.
Sampras sluttede året som nr. 1 i verden seks år i træk (1993-1998) og blev kun væltet af tronen pga. en skade i 1999 (Andre Agassi sluttede som nr. 1 i 1999). Ved verdensmesterskabet i november 1999 fik Sampras dog revanche og besejrede Agassi klart i finalen. Det var således Sampras' femte VM-titel.