Career Highlights - 1997
Titles (8)
Australian Open
San Jose
Philadelphia
Wimbledon
Cincinnati
Grand Slam Cup
Paris Indoor
ATP Tour World Championship
- Had a great start in the year winning 17 matches in a row including his 2nd AO title.
- At the Aussie Open, Sampras escaped from 2-4 and 15-40 down in the fifth set, against the then unknown Slovakian, Dominik Hrbaty, in the fourth round.
- The final against Carlos Moya was 1hr 26 minutes, in temperatures that touched 33 degrees, - one of the three fastest Australian Open finals of the past 15 years, along with Ivan Lendl's straight-sets win over ninth-seeded Miloslav Mecir in 1989 and Johan Kriek's rapid-fire dismissal of unseeded Steve Denton in 1982.
- By April 28, he was no. 1 for 171 weeks.
- In the French Open, he lost to Magnus Norman in the 3rd round.
- Lost to Bjorkman in Queens
- Claimed his 4th Wimbledon title by downing Cedric Pioline in straight sets. From the first round to the semifinals, Sampras went 97 consecutive service games without being broken. He held 116 of 118 service games during the tournament
- Won Cincinnati, his first tourny after Wimbledon. Pete decided to take a month off. It was the first time since Stefan Edberg a decade ago that a player had gone through this tournament without dropping a set.
- won the 8 finals he played in, including the Grand Slam Cup
- By end of the year, he held 52 career titles.
- At the USO, lost to Korda in the 5th set tiebreak in the 4th round
- Played Davis Cup semifinals against Australia in Washington DC where he defeated US Open Chmapion Patrick Rafter 6-7 (6-8), 6-1, 6-1, 6-4 to send the United States to the Davis Cup finals for the second time in three years. With that victory, Samprass won his eight consecutive Davis Cup singles matches.
- At the ATP Championships, lost his 1st match in the round robin to Moya but swept the rest of his matches to win his 4th ATP Championship title
- In the Davis Cup finals, retired from the 2nd match vs Larsson due to calf muscle injury. USA lost 0-5 to Sweden
- Off the courts, won the longest drive contest at the 1997 Isuzu Celebrity Golf Tournement with a drive of 332 yards.
- Voted ATP player of the year
- Voted by current and past players and media as the best tennis player of the last 25 years.
- Pete Sampras became the first tennis player to win the U.S. Olympic Committee's SportsMan of the Year Award. In 1990s, the USOC SportsMan honors have gone to wrestler John Smith (1990), track's Carl Lewis (1991), swimmer Pablo Morales (1992), track's Michael Johnson (1993, '95, 96) and speedskater Dan Jansen (1994).
More Career Highlights
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1990 1991 1992
1993 1994
1995
1996 1997
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2002
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