Legends of Wimbledon - Pete Sampras

Thought I would share a documentary on youtube highlighting the Wimbledon career of Pete Sampras. Enjoy:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Thanks for posting YI man, was good to watch. Was never a fan of that era of finals at Wimbledon (too many aces and too few rallies for my taste) but there is no denying the skill. I was getting a bit nostalgic for a minute.

I saw that last year.

I do however have reservations over his comment at the end about 'winning one more major' had the US Open in 2002 not culminated in success whether he would've continued playing. You could tell after the Federer defeat at Wimbledon that he felt sore. He lost to Hewitt in the US Open final and to Safin the previous year. I wonder how much really believed he had a Slam left in him.

Just read somewhere he used a 400g racquet???

How on earth he hasn't got athritis in his wrist is beyond me. Especially as he never played a double handed backhand!!

Yep, Sampras had a very heavy racquet and it was strung at something like 85lbs! His stringer said he was amazing how he got the power he did out of the racquet...his timing had to be prodigous to hit those running FHs as he did (probably the best running FH the game has seen).

For me, his Wimb 99 final performance is the best tennis I have seen played to this day.

Agree lydian.

His Wimbledon 1999 final is the most dominant performance the game has seen. I think only Nadal FO 2008 could match it.

Good to see you think similarly LK. I remember at the time being blown away by the performance. It was in many ways the pinnacle of attacking tennis as shortly afterwards the game took a different direction. His S&V game on the day was lethal (and Agassi played really well too!), plus his groundstrokes were awesome - even his BH was hit with real venom. Simply staggering performance. Anyone who only started watching tennis in the 00s should get a DVD of that match.

Yep Nadal was also a juggernaut that fated day at FO'08 - but with a different brand of tennis.

I remember watching it and just 'wow'

It wasn't like Agassi gave him the match either. Sampras played the 'perfect' match. The serves just flew in. He hardly missed a volley. Agassi was working overtime on almost every point just to stay in the point.

Going back to 2008 in Paris, Nadal didn't really get the credit he deserved in terms of how was able to pick off Federer's varied attack. Federer threw everything in his arsenal at Nadal and it all came back.

I draw parallels between Nadal and Sampras, because on their respective favoured surfaces, they are very much un-beatable.