I had recorded the Australian Men’s final and watched it last night. Federer easily beat Gonzo. It’s been said that Feds going to go on to win 17-18 majors before it’s done, surpassing Sampras’ 14. I think if I were Sampras, I would try to defend my record, come out of retirement and win a couple more majors. What does everyone else think?
This should probably be in IMHO.
Sampras will be 36 in August. If he came out of retirement to try to defend his record, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference because Federer would run right over him (assuming Sampras could even make it to a major final).
As always, it’s interesting to discuss how players of different eras would fare against each other.
I’m not a big Sampras fan: he was very inconsistent and seemed to be unmotivated at times, unlike Federer who brings his best efforts to every match. However, I will acknowledge that Sampras had many great battles and heroic triumphs.
Federer is perhaps the most rounded player ever. Forehand, backhand, serve-volley, fitness and desire: there are no weaknesses. Barring an injury he will surpass Sampras’s record of 14 singles majors in a few years.
Sampras was one of the gutsiest players I’ve ever seen. But top-tier tennis is for the twenty-
somethings, and even with an extensive training program Pete probably would be too rusty to
last more than 3 sets with Roger. Not that I would not want to see it, as Pete (or Patrick Rafter)
will be remembered as the last great serve-and-volleyer, and contrasting styles have always
made for exciting matches.
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Actually, let’s lob this one over to Cafe Society.
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Even if he tried, and I’m sure he’s tempted, he wouldn’t win another major. Sampras’s skills diminished big-time before he retired. He ended his career with that last US Open win, but before that he went two full years without a title of any kind. (He did reach two US Open finals in a row before that, so he was fine when his motivation was high, but he couldn’t do it year-round.) His last match at Wimbledon was a second-round loss. He was struggling to compete with average players, much less the best in the world, and that was four or five years ago.
I’m sure Sampras’ serve is about as good as it was - he’s finally catching up to the improvements in racquets - but his desire to win wouldn’t be the same, and neither would his movement around the court, which is crucial for a serve-and-volley player. He wouldn’t be kicking anybody’s ass at 36.
Sampras? Inconsistent? You’re kidding right? The guy was number one for a record six straight years. He won Wimbledon every year like clockwork. I was not a big Sampras fan; he seemed determined to kill off any sense of personality in tennis as we know it. But you have to admire the tenecity.
The Sampras of today would get absolutely crushed by just about anyone inside the top 20 right now. Sampras had a great farewell tourney - but I hope he sent a bottle of the best champagne to Hewitt. Had Agassi not had a very difficult, physical four-set match against Hewitt (back when he was still a top player) in the semi-finals the day before, Sampras would have been completely white-washed by Agassi in that last US Open final. (Sampras not only had the early game, he played against Sjeng Schalken, who was unheard of before and remains unheard of ever since).
I almost wish that final had never happened - having the last Agassi-Sampras match be the sublime four-setter in 2001 (four tie breaks!) would have been perfect; that might have been the best tennis match I ever saw.
Federer is - hands down - the best player I have ever seen. Bar none. In their prime, Federer beats Sampras in four sets 8 out of 10 times. Federer can do everything Sampras can do just a little bit better (except maybe Sampras had the better second serve).
If he stays motivated, there’s no reason Federer can’t win 2 slams a year for the next five-six years. I fully expect him to win a true Grand Slam at some point. 20 grand slams isn’t out of the question.
For absolutely no reason at all, i’ll include my top five male players:
- Federer
- Sampras
- Borg
- Agassi
- Laver
Compared to Federer statistically, he can look a little inconsistent - the numbers don’t make it as clear that he was the best for at least that six year stretch. He was there at the end of the year, but he wasn’t number one in the world every week, and he didn’t always kick the crap out of everybody like Federer does.
One of those things that defines Sampras, to me, is that he sometimes worked like a dog to win matches against lesser players - like the upchuck match against Alex Corretja in 1996. If he wins the match and wins the tournament, like he usually did, nobody really cares and it only adds to his legend. They were great matches with great drama, so it’s not exactly a strike against him. But Federer never seems to need a match like that, and it’s to his credit that it usually looks so easy.
It’s more a testament to Federer’s consistency than Sampras’s lack of it. Like you said, Sampras was number one at the end of the year for six years in a row. If Federer stays the top player for another two or three years, it’ll be clear he was better in almost every respect.
True - but still, Sampras had to win enough during the course of the year to be in position to be the best player at the end of the year - since the rankings run on a 52-week cycle, the number-one ranked player the last week of the season was, in fact, the best player for that year.
Federer makes it look soooo easy. Sublime. That said, I don’t recall Sampras having too many first-round exits either; he always found a way to win. That nasty second serve probably was worth a couple of grand slams on its own.
No argument there. He was the best of his time and one of the best ever. But when you compare Sampras, who always managed to be #1 at the end of the year, to Federer, who has been the best player every single week for three years and counting, it doesn’t look as good as it really is.
He didn’t have many, if you ignore the French Open. 
Leaving the French tournament out, between '92 and 2000, he played in 26 Slams, reached the quarterfinals or better 23 times, and won 12 of them.
Returning to Pete’s comeback for a minute, I’m sure he can clean up against McEnroe and some of the other senior players - they’re either older than he is, or they weren’t as good as him to begin with. He never had much personality, but it can only be a good thing for tennis if he gets a little more involved with the game after these years of silence.
I know that Sampras is up there in age being 35, but I remember how dominant he was in the late 90’s. No one could even come close to beating him. I think that if he can get back in shape, and with the proper motivation, he has a good chance at beating most of the top 20 players today. I mean just look at Nadal. He stands 5-6 feet behind the baseline for heaven’s sake. Sampras would eat that up big time. And most of the top players these days are baseliners, which feeds into the Sampras strength.
I know that if Sampras were to come out of retirement, start training hard, he’d get back up to, or close to his top form. It may not be right away, but he’d eventually get there.
Let me ask you folks. Wouldn’t you want to defend your record as much as you could? Maybe try for 2-3 more grand slams? I would if I were Sampras.
The problem is with the time involved. He’s not going to get into top form unless he plays against top players, and that’s not going to happen much.
Let’s say he played the whole US Open series this summer. That’s what, seven tournaments, including the Open? How many shots at top players is he going to get? A couple? Most of his matches would be against lesser players, and I’m not sure he’d win many of those. He’d never get a shot at a top player like Federer unless he lucked into him in the first round.
So now he’s put his 36 year old body though a hell of a grueling summer. He’s maybe played a match or two against a top player, and he gets waxed in straight sets on each of those occasions. Now he gets to the US Open, and he’s tired and he’s probably hurt.
How long is he going to be able to do this? Surely not long enough to win another major title.
While Sampras’ record is very impressive, Federer’s record in the last four years is much better than any comparable stretch in Sampras’ career. And you will note that Federer seems much more likely to solve Roland Garros than Sampras was. Indeed, had he been just the slightest bit better in the tie-breaker last year, he likely would have beaten Nadal.
But the point of the OP appears to be that, while Federer is quite good, he’s not really being challenged by much of anyone outside of the clay surface. So Sampras might be thinking that, other than Roger, who is there to worry about? As has been stated, most of the top 32 would kick his ass at his current age. Even when he retired in 2002, he was only ranked 13th, and other than his longevity in the US Open, his last three years were marked mostly by early exits from most of the tournaments in which he played.
He won most of the times when the chips were down, but it’s not like he never lost. If you got him to a Grand Slam final, he won.
No way. I heard him on ESPN the other night, and it really did sound like he’d like to be out there playing matches - but he knew the balance. He was upfront about saying he liked spending time with his kids, and didn’t want to do the day in and day out work that he’d have to do to be a regular player, much less a top player. He doesn’t have the motivation, and he’s earned that. He wasn’t the best when he quit, so how could he be the best now?
Those players beat Sampras regularly in the last years of his career, and he’s significantly older now. I don’t think he’d be able to compete with Nadal or Blake, who cover so much of the court. One reason guys stay away from the net is that it’s easier than ever for your opponent to stay back and blast it past you up the line. Roddick right now is better than Sampras could be, and he tried to be aggressive and serve and volley against Federer in Australia. Federer ate him alive.
I think he does want to keep the record. But he understands how hard it would be, and he isn’t willing to do it. He’d have to work like Agassi did in his last years, or even harder because of his style of play. Even Agassi didn’t win any Slams in his last few years. Sampras has made his money and won his championships, and at 36, he’s not going to put in the kind of day in and day out training he would need. Who can blame him?
Am I the only one who read the subject line wrong at first, thinking it said “Sampiro”?
I liked Sampras a lot, but at this stage of his career (and Federer’s), I’d say that Jack Nicklaus has as good a shot at coming back to the PGA to prevent Tiger Woods from breaking his records as Sampras has of coming back and dethroning Federer.
Heck, why doesn’t Hank Aaron come back to the major leagues, to keep Barry Bonds from passing him? His chances would be almost as good as Sampras’.
Right now, Federer is the best tennis player of all time. Even in his prime, Sampras wasn’t this good.
It is a great treat for sports fans right now to witness both Tiger Woods and Roger Federer in their primes. When all is said and done, they will both be recognized as the best there ever was in their respective sports.
Not only would Sampras fail to beat Federer now, but even if he got a time machine and went back to his prime to play against the Federer of today, Pete would be fortunate to get to a fifth set. Federer is just that good.
Watching the Austalian open, my jaw was on the floor during that Nadal-Gonzalez match. That was some serious power hitting and almost inhuman court coverage from both players. During the match I was thinking that these guys looked like the greatest players ever; I couldn’t even conceive of how either of them were as good as they were, much less how anybody else could beat them.
Of course, I was also fully aware and amazed by the fact that neither were in Federer’s class, and that he would almost certainly beat the winner in straight sets in the final. Hell, Roger could probably go through both of them back-to-back in six straight sets without too much trouble. Thinking that, I just shook my head and said “wow.”
This is truly a great time to be a tennis fan. (At least, on the men’s side. That probably goes without saying, though. Compared to the men, the women look like they’re wearing concrete shoes and playing with a wiffle ball.)
Oh God no. I actually blame Sampras as an individual for killing male tennis as a spectator sport. No doubt, the man was great and he won a shitload, but he was also a machine that took the fun out of the game, using his killer serve to grind opponents to dust.
Connors, Becker, Borg, McEnroe - they were all great players and entertainers. Sampras not so much.
[/old geezer]
I certainly wouldn’t go that far. Serena is probably the strongest woman ever to
play pro tennis. Sure a good man will beat a good woman, but duhh.
I still think Pete, with his legendary ability to rise to the occasion, would be able to
tough out a match vs. Federer, prime vs. prime. Of course we have the argument
that the old time players, if transported to the present in their primes, would get
ripped, because the best players of today are better athletes. But that assumes
that the old-timers get no benefit from modern sports medicine either.
I’d still like them to tone down the rackets somehow. You could say the sport was
better when we had wooden rackets and a variety of styles were in play.
It was just announced the other day that Pete is going to play on his first Senior Tour event.
I feel bad for the older guys. Pete should be annihilate them.