Pete Sampras

b. 1971 Specialist

A quiet champion who held the Grand Slam record for years

Portrait of Pete Sampras — Shinya Suzuki — 2011-10-24 — CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Pete Sampras was born in Washington, D.C., to a Greek immigrant mother and an American father of Greek and Polish-Jewish descent; the family moved to Palos Verdes, California, when he was seven. He found a tennis racket at three and hit balls against the basement wall for hours. Coach Robert Lansdorp drilled him on driving through the ball rather than the heavy topspin then in fashion, while physician and family friend Pete Fischer coached him separately and made the unusual call to rebuild his two-handed backhand into a one-handed shot built for attacking the net. Sampras turned professional in 1988 at sixteen, still built more like a junior player than the dominant force he would become.

Sampras won his first Grand Slam at the 1990 US Open at nineteen, the youngest men's champion in the tournament's history at that point, and went on to win 14 major singles titles before he retired, seven Wimbledons, five US Opens and two Australian Opens, an all-time record when he set it. He finished six consecutive years, 1993 through 1998, ranked world number one, and held the top ranking for 286 weeks total. His rivalry with Andre Agassi, the game's other dominant American of the era, ran through repeated Grand Slam finals and ended 20 wins to 14 in Sampras's favor. He retired in September 2003 after beating Agassi in the US Open final, the only man in the sport's Open era to win the last major tournament he ever played.

Sampras built a reputation for a nearly emotionless court presence, and the private reality behind it was more complicated than the image. He played much of his career with beta-thalassemia minor, a mild inherited anemia that left him fatigued, and won a five-set 1996 US Open quarterfinal against Alex Corretja while visibly cramping and vomiting courtside between points, a match that became the signature image of what his placid exterior cost him physically. He was also, throughout his prime, criticized by American sportswriters and even some fans for being boring, too efficient, too private, insufficiently colorful next to Agassi's showmanship, a complaint about the greatest statistical champion of his era that said more about what American sports media wanted from stars than about Sampras's tennis.

Sampras's 14 major titles stood as the men's record for five years until Roger Federer passed it in 2009, and the record has since been pushed past 20 by Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, part of a general reordering of tennis history that has made cross-era comparison an open argument rather than a settled one. Whether Sampras's serve-and-volley dominance would have translated against the modern game's baseline power, and where exactly he ranks among the sport's greatest Americans alongside Agassi, Serena Williams and Arthur Ashe, remains unresolved among historians of the sport. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2007 and lives in Lake Sherwood, California, with his wife, actress Bridgette Wilson, and their two sons.

Lifespan

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Pete Sampras's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

Notable works

1990 US Open singles title other
Youngest men's US Open champion at the time, at 19 1990
14 Grand Slam singles titles other
All-time men's record at his retirement 2003
286 weeks at world No. 1 other
Finished six consecutive years, 1993-1998, ranked world No. 1 1993
International Tennis Hall of Fame induction other 2007

Life in brief

with age at each point

August 12, 1971 aged 0 Born in Washington, D.C.
1978 aged ~7 Family moves to Palos Verdes, California
1988 aged ~17 Turns professional at 16
September 9, 1990 aged 19 Wins the US Open at 19, his first Grand Slam title
September 5, 1996 aged 25 Wins an epic five-set US Open quarterfinal over Alex Corretja while cramping and vomiting on court
September 30, 2000 aged 29 Marries actress Bridgette Wilson
September 7, 2003 aged 32 Retires after beating Andre Agassi in the US Open final for his 14th major title
2007 aged ~36 Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame