That hasn’t changed now. Roger Federer is certainly a legend, but Pete Sampras was also an undeniable legend, during the period of history when Sampras dominated world tennis . Sampras’s 14 Grand Slams have been surpassed by Federer and perhaps Rafael Nadal with his 2013 US Open title, his 13th Grand Slam, will also equal Sampras in a short time. But in the tennis world, Sampras is still a name that carries a lot of emotions like an immortality on the court!

“I want him back. People want to see Sampras on court,” said John McEnroe, another legend, when he invited Sampras to the Outback Champions Series, an exhibition tour of champions. Sampras was nearly 36 and had been retired for five years, but fans still missed the American’s mesmerizing shots.

Everyone still remembers Pete Sampras’ mesmerizing shots.

Born in Potomac, Maryland on August 12, 1971, the fourth child of Sammy and Georgia Sampras. Sampras’ mother was an immigrant from Sparta, Greece, and his father was born in the United States with the blood of a Greek father and a Jewish mother. Perhaps that is why Sampras’s face has clear Greek features with curly hair that reminds people of the gods in Greek mythology. Like other outstanding colleagues, Sampras’ tennis talent was revealed very early when he was only 3 years old. Once rummaging through the basement of the house and discovering an old tennis racket, Sampras was attached to it from then on and the practice of hitting the ball against the wall followed the hyperactive boy, who no one thought would later become a legend.

At the age of seven, Sampras moved with his family to Palos Verdes, California, where the warmer climate allowed him more time to play tennis. It was there that Sampras met his idol, the legendary Rod Laver, the last player in the Open Era to win all four Grand Slams in the same season in 1969. Laver was surprised when he trained with Sampras at the age of 11, and the former Australian exclaimed: “This kid is going to be No. 1 in the world sooner or later.” But Laver was not the first to sense it, and the person who brought Sampras closer to real tennis was Peter Fischer.

Not a coach or a professional tennis player, Fischer was a pediatrician and a tennis enthusiast. He mentored Sampras until he became an 18-year-old tennis player and it was Fischer who guided Sampras to change his two-handed backhand to a one-handed one with the main goal of conquering Wimbledon, the Grand Slam tournament that still holds Sampras’s record of 7 titles, a feat that only Federer has now achieved.

Sampras turned professional in 1988, when he was not yet 17 years old. Starting from No. 893 in early 1988, Sampras entered the world top 100 at No. 97 by the end of the year. Sampras’s first professional match was against compatriot Sammy Giammalva Jr. in the first round of the 1988 Philadelphia tournament and he lost (4-6, 3-6). But just over a week later, the world was surprised when an unknown Sampras defeated both Ramesh Krishnan (India), ranked 37th in the world (6-3, 3-6, 7-6) and Eliot Teltscher (USA), ranked 25th in the world (7-5, 6-3) in the first two rounds of the Indian Wells tournament (now the Indian Wells Masters), before losing to Spanish world number 18 Emilio Sanchez (5-7, 2-6) in the third round.

Pete Sampras won the 1990 US Open at the age of 19

However, six months later, people had forgotten the name Sampras when the 17-year-old boy did not win any player in the top 40, until he defeated Michiel Schapers of the Netherlands, ranked 39th in the world (7-5, 7-6) in the first round of the Rye Brook tournament in New York, the warm-up tournament for the 1988 US Open. Then just a week later, Sampras left the US Open with his head held high after dedicating a five-set match to the world number 69 player of Peru Jaime Yzaga (7-6, 7-6, 4-6, 5-7, 2-6) despite leading by 2 sets. Who would have believed that just two years later at the 1990 US Open, the name Pete Sampras became the youngest player in history to win the final Grand Slam tournament of the season at the age of 19 years and 28 days!

Sampras had a total of 14 years of professional competition until 2002 and ended on a high note with the 2002 US Open championship at the age of 31, with a victory over arch-rival Andre Agassi, one of Sampras’s rivals in his illustrious career. Sampras won 14 Grand Slams in total, including 2 Australian Open titles (1994, 1997), 7 Wimbledon titles (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000) and 5 US Open titles (1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2002). The biggest flaw in Sampras’ career was never reaching the Roland Garros final.

Clay courts are still the place that “kills” Sampras’s “serve & volley” style. Sampras’s best achievement on clay is reaching the semi-finals of Roland Garros 1996 and having 3 titles on clay in Kitzbuhel, Austria in 1992, Rome in 1994 and Atlanta in 1998. But the place where Sampras excelled most was still Wimbledon grass courts, with the “serve & volley” style of play that became an immortal legend.

Read the next part of the legendary Pete Sampras portrait, with the classic “serve & volley” weapon at 11am on Thursday, September 26.