Athletes - Pete Sampras

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	Athletes - Pete Sampras

|- | Country: || United States |- | Residence: || Los Angeles, California, USA |- | Height: || 185 cm (6 ft 1 in) |- | Weight: || 77 kg (170 lb) |- | Plays: || Right |- | Turned pro: || 1988 |- | Retired: || 2002 |- | Highest singles ranking: || 1 (1993-04-12) |- | Singles titles: || 64 |- | Career Prize Money: || US$43,280,489 |- ! colspan="2" bgcolor="#ffffff" | Grand Slam Record
Titles: 14 |- | Australian Open | W ('94, '97) |- | French Open | SF (1996) |- | Wimbledon | W ('93-'95; '97-'00) |- | US Open | W ('90, '93, '95, '96, '02) |}

Peter ("Pete") Sampras (August 12, 1971), is a former World No. 1 American tennis player. He is considered to be one of the best male tennis players of all time, having won a record 14 Grand Slam men's singles titles and finished the year as No. 1 on the ATP world rankings for a record six consecutive years. He won the men's singles title at Wimbledon a record seven times. He also won the US Open five times and the Australian Open twice. However, the one major championship which eluded him was the French Open.

Tennis career

Sampras was born in Washington, DC, and is the third son of Sam and Georgia Sampras, Greek immigrants to the United States; his paternal grandmother was Sephardic Jewish. From an early age, Sampras showed signs of outstanding athletic ability. The young Sampras discovered a tennis racquet in the basement of his home and spent hours hitting balls against the wall. In 1978, the Sampras family moved to Palos Verdes, California, and the warmer climate there allowed seven-year-old Pete to play more tennis. The Sampras family joined the Peninsula Racquet Club, where they played a great deal of tennis together. It was here that Pete's ability became apparent. At the age of 11 he had already learned the solid serve and volley tactic that would become the hallmark of his game. He was spotted by Dr. Peter Fisher, a pediatrician and a tennis enthusiast, who became his mentor for a long part of his career. He oversaw his training and arranged coaches. Pete Sampras would face later the twin blows of his career when Peter Fisher was convicted for child molestation charges, which he also accepted and later the death of his beloved coach Tim Gullikson. But Pete Sampras maintained that Dr. Peter Fisher's behaviour towards him was normal and straightforward.

Sampras turned professional in 1988 at the age of 17. He won his first top-level singles title in February 1990 at Philadelphia. In August that year, he captured his first Grand Slam title at the US Open. He defeated Ivan Lendl in the quarterfinals and John McEnroe in the semifinals, to set up a final showdown with another up-and-coming American player, Andre Agassi. Sampras beat Agassi in straight sets to become the US Open's youngest-ever male singles champion at the age of 19 years and 28 days. The rivalry between Agassi and Sampras was to become the dominant rivalry in tennis in the 1990s, and Sampras would win 20 of the 34 matches they played.

1991 saw Sampras capture the first of five career titles at the year-end ATP Tour World Championships. In 1992, he finished runner-up at the US Open and played on the US team which won the Davis Cup (he would help the US win the cup again in 1995).

In April 1993, Sampras reached the World No. 1 ranking for the first time. His rise to the No. 1 spot was controversial at the time as he had not recently won any Grand Slam titles. But he justified the ranking three months later by claiming his first Wimbledon title, beating former World No. 1 Jim Courier in the final. This was swiftly followed by his second US Open title. He finished the year as the clear No. 1 and set a new ATP Tour record that year by becoming the first player to serve over 1000 aces in a season.

Sampras dominated Wimbledon for the rest of the decade following his breakthrough title in 1993. He won three consecutive titles in 1993-95. He had a surprise quarterfinal loss in 1996 to Richard Krajicek, who went on to win the title that year. Sampras then followed this by winning four consecutive titles in 1997-2000, to become the most successful male player in Wimbledon history. His win in 2000 also allowed him to break Roy Emerson's record of 12 Grand Slam men's singles titles.

Sampras best surface was undoubtedly the fast-playing grass courts. However he was also known for his good all-round game and a strong competitive instinct. He won back-to-back US Open titles in 1995-96. He also won the Australian Open twice in 1994 and 1997. Sampras' only real weakness was on clay courts, where the slow surface tended to negate his natural attacking serve-and-volley game. His best performance at the French Open came in 1996, when he reached the semi-finals, and his failure to win that title is the one blemish on his otherwise exceptionally impressive career record.

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Athletes - Pete Sampras

Tennis career

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