Posted on: April 07th, 2006
Sampras would be foil to Federer
- petepage[April 7, 2006, DALE ROBERTSON] Grand Slam king had service game, aggressive style to upstage No. 1
The torch didn't pass the day a teenage Roger Federer beat Pete Sampras in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2001, ending Sampras' 31-match winning streak on the lawns that had become so sacred to him.
Just 19, Federer was lost in the tennis woods, a terrific physical talent who couldn't keep his focus from one match — or sometimes set — to the next. He would be beaten in the quarterfinals by local hero Tim Henman, after which he failed to escape even the fourth round of the next seven majors before inevitably breaking through at Wimbledon in 2003.
That's the day the torch passed. That's when the talk, and the counting, began. Less than three years later, the greatest debate has become a rumble, approaching a roar.
Groundswell for Swiss
And support is tilting toward Federer. Most recently Sergi Bruguera, the two-time French Open champion and a Sampras contemporary, declared Federer to be the superior player.
Sampras' thoughts?
"It's hard to compare generations," he said, taking the diplomatic track. "I missed (John) McEnroe, (Bjorn) Borg, (Rod) Laver and Roger when I was in my prime. It's hard to say how I would have done against any of them."
Regarding Bruguera's comments, Sampras said: "Everyone's got their opinion. Sergi's entitled to his."
People favor Federer, it would seem, because he's on the court now and because he has kept his boot on the necks of his rivals since late 2003 like no player before him. The Swiss who rarely misses has won seven of the past 11 Slams while losing only 12 of his past 200 matches. Sampras went 6-for-12 in the majors in 1993-95, but during the height of his powers, he never won the secondary events with Federer's frequency.
But that fact doesn't prove Federer's superiority.
"Roger is head and shoulders above everyone, and there are many good players today," Sampras said. "But I think there are fewer great players than there were 10 years ago. Down to 50 to 70 (in the rankings), it's probably deeper, but the guys two through seven aren't as strong as the players I was having to beat to win Slams."
Agassi pushed Pete
In 1995, arguably Sampras' finest season because he won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and was the runner-up in Australia, second-ranked Andre Agassi also reached the pinnacle of his Hall of Fame-worthy game.
Agassi was tough enough that year to hand Sampras three of his 15 losses, including the Melbourne final.
No. 3 was the Austrian clay court titan, Thomas Muster, the Rafael Nadal of his day. Boris Becker, Michael Chang, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Thomas Enqvist rounded out the top seven, followed by Jim Courier, who by then had collected four Slams. Becker was a three-time Wimbledon champion with U.S. and Australian titles, too; Chang and Kafelnikov were past and future French Open champions, respectively. Kafelnikov also would prevail Down Under.
Today, with Agassi, 35, and the slumping Lleyton Hewitt having fallen out of the top 10, the players near Federer in the rankings have just two major titles between them — Nadal's French and Andy Roddick's U.S. Open.
Most significantly, none of them has a weapon, much less weapons, capable of neutralizing Federer's all-around excellence. It's for this reason Sampras says, "I think Roger will wind up being No. 1 for as long as he wants to be."
Chasing record
It's going to take Federer four more years, the current one included, to tie the record for year-end No. 1 finishes Sampras shares with Ivan Lendl. As for the Grand Slam race, Federer claimed his seventh at the Australian Open, leaving him halfway to Sampras' record 14 roughly six months after turning 24. Sampras had turned 24 only a month earlier when he got his seventh at the 1995 U.S. Open, his 26th Slam. After falling short in his first 16 majors, Federer is 7-for-27.
"Roger has taken over the tour," Sampras said. "He's winning matches even when he's not playing well, making it look effortless. I know he doesn't get the respect in the U.S. he deserves, but I definitely have the utmost respect for him."
Back to that nagging question, though: Could Sampras, playing his best, have beaten Federer, playing his best?
Yes, absolutely. Because Sampras had the weapons — a killer first serve plus a bedeviling second serve — plus the attacking style Federer's leading rivals lack, as buried behind the baseline as they tend to stay.
"I'm probably in the top two or three (of all time), with Borg and Laver or Roger," Sampras suggests, answering as candidly as he can. "It's hard to pick out one No. 1.
"All I can say is that when I was playing my best, I did feel unbeatable against anybody I had to play against."
Which, to be sure, is how Federer feels in 2006.
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