He had become the first American male to win at Flushing Meadows since McEnroe in , and kept the entire field spellbound with what would become the cornerstone of his career: serving. His 13 th ace of the match, and th of the tournament, blasted past Agassi on championship point. As a young player, Sampras idolized Laver, as much for his ability to win on all surfaces, as how he comported himself in victory.
The two shared a common playing style — serve and volley, attack, controlled tennis — but Sampras was bigger and stronger than Laver and could pound his forehand and backhand harder than the Aussie legend.
What they shared was class, Sampras was the consummate champion in triumph and defeat. Starting in and until , there were considerably more triumphs than defeats. The competition was fierce and stacked. Sampras won his first Wimbledon Gentlemen Singles Championships in , leading to a run of seven victories in eight years — three straight and four consecutively He won three of five US Opens from to and his two Australian Championships were captured in and Sampras was a finalist in He won two major singles titles in the same year four times , , , He won the and Wimbledon titles as the No.
His title was earned as the No. His four straight championships starting in he lost in the quarterfinals , were all achieved as the No. In he defeated Pioline, a routine , , victory. In a well-played and entertaining final against Agassi, Sampras prevailed , , , He successfully defended his title in , sweeping past Michael Chang , , , When Sampras defeated Agassi in the final, it put the finishing touches on a tremendous run at Flushing Meadows, where he compiled a record 88 percent , best in history.
It was certainly a far cry from his debut when as a wild card entrant, he lost to Peruvian Jaime Yzaga in five sets after winning the first two sets in tiebreakers, , , , , Sampras added to his legacy with a pair of Australian titles, the championship earned over Todd Martin, , , The only major title that evaded Sampras was at the French Open, where the slow clay at Roland Garros was a stickler for Sampras, whose game was tailor-made for hard courts.
His best finish in Paris was the semifinals in From to , he had 11 years of reaching at least one major final, a record he shares with Lendl. From to , he appeared in eight US Open finals, tied with Lendl in the record books. He won five or more titles at two different majors, a mark shared with Borg and Federer. More NBA News ». More NBA Rumors ». View all NBA Sites. More MLB News ». More MLB Rumors ». View all MLB Sites. More NHL News ». More Puck Prose News ». View all NHL Sites.
More Soccer News ». More Playing for 90 News ». View all Soccer Sites. More College Football News ». His title run was historically important because it was the first Open Wimbledon, as Laver knocked off Arthur Ashe and Tony Roche in the final two matches without the loss of a set.
His and Wimbledon crowns were particularly significant because they were part of his Grand Slam years. He is still the only person to sweep all four major tournaments in the same calendar year twice. By virtually any measure, Laver ranks as one of tennis' all-time greats. He is No. Bjorn Borg won five straight Wimbledon titles, a men's record for consecutive crowns at the All England Club, later matched by Roger Federer. The record does not include consecutive titles won before , when the defending champion had to win only one match to claim the title.
Borg was a mediocre grass-court player when he first played Wimbledon but developed his game to excel on the fast surface. At a time when serve-and-volley players ruled on grass, Borg proved you could win at Wimbledon with outstanding groundstrokes and a serviceable serve and volley. He had already won two French Opens by the time he won his first Wimbledon title in , a month past his 20th birthday.
Interestingly, that first Wimbledon crown came just a few weeks after his most disappointing French Open performance, when he lost in the quarterfinals.
Borg won his first Wimbledon title in without the loss of a set, and no man has done that since. The next year he had to win three five-set matches to take the title, including a marathon victory over Jimmy Connors in the final.
However, his most memorable Wimbledon title was his last one, in His riveting , , , , victory over John McEnroe was remarkable not only for the level of play, but for Borg's ability to rebound from the epic tiebreaker loss in the fourth set to capture the deciding set. However, that is less of a factor in women's tennis because there was no pro circuit for women before All the best women's players were amateurs before tennis became open to the pros.
King played her best tennis on the grass at Wimbledon. Half of her Grand Slam singles titles were achieved at Wimbledon, and 11 of her 12 major crowns were captured on grass. King's serve-and-volley game was perfectly suited to the fast grass surface. King was 22 when she defeated Margaret Court then Margaret Smith and Maria Bueno in consecutive matches to win her first Wimbledon title in , and she lost only one set while capturing the Wimbledon crown the next two years as well.
King beat Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong Cawley in succession to win the title and beat the same two in consecutive matches to win Wimbledon the next year. However, her defining Wimbledon was in , when King was 31 years old. She trailed Evert , on Evert's serve in the third set before rallying to win that semifinal match, then she dominated Goolagong , in the most lopsided Wimbledon final ever. King had proclaimed earlier that the Wimbledon would be her last major singles tournament, and she did not play singles in any of the next eight majors.
However, she would play Wimbledon singles six more times after that, getting as far as the semifinals in her last appearance in at the age of The final chapter of Serena Williams' story has yet to be written, and she could rise several spots in the ranking of Wimbledon champions before she is through. Her five Wimbledon titles over a span of 10 years speak to her longevity and her ability to maintain a high level of play over an extended period.
She won her first Wimbledon crown at the age of 20 and her fifth at the age of At age 33, she came into this year's Wimbledon as the favorite to win her sixth Wimbledon crown. If Williams wins it, she would become the oldest woman to win a Grand Slam singles title, being several days older than Martina Navratilova was when she won the Wimbledon crown.
A Wimbledon victory would give Williams the first three legs of a calendar-year Grand Slam that she could complete with a win at the U. Winning Wimbledon would also give Williams her 21st Grand Slam singles title, leaving her one behind Steffi Graf the Open Era record-holder and three behind Margaret Court who owns the all-time mark.
Sampras defended his title in when he completed a straight-sets victory against the big-serving Goran Ivanisevic and a year later, he became the first man since Bjorn Borg to complete a hat-trick of Wimbledon titles when he came from a set down to beat Boris Becker. Sampras' longtime coach and close friend Tim Gullikson was diagnosed with brain cancer earlier in and the American dedicated the victory to him after the match.
Becker, the crowd's sentimental favourite, was full of praise for Sampras when he said: "If there is a role model in tennis, it's Pete Sampras. He's behaving perfectly on court. He's a real nice fellow off the court and he's playing great tennis altogether. He doesn't really have a bad shot in his game.
I think he's extremely good for the game of tennis. Sampras had everything a tennis player could wish for. He was the complete all-rounder who showed little emotion and had a game made for grass. Head down, he would bounce the ball between two and four times with a continental grip, which is used to serve, volley and slice.
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