The name of Pete Sampras brings to the mind the memories of a neighbourhood boy who had innocent looks but was also bright and intelligent at the same time. The guy who once ruled the world tennis stage, always took deliberate efforts to evade controversies. Petros “ Pete” Sampras was born in Washington D.C the US on August 12, 1971 and took up tennis as a profession in 1988. In a career that spread over 15 years, he appeared for the US and won 14 Grand Slam men’s singles titles, which includes five single titles at US Open; which is a record that shares with Jimmy Connors, and Roger Federer. Pete Sampras is considered as one of the best tennis players ever happened in the game’s history.

From childhood itself, Sampras showed his outstanding athletic ability which were early isgns of an upcoming tennis legend. After his entry into professional tennis in 1988, at the age of 16, Sampras had a truimph for almost a deacade. The rivalry between him and Andre Agassi, another top seeded player from the U.S was famous in the 1990s, with Sampras winning 20 of the 34 matches they played.

The next years saw a Sampras who went on rampage on field. Sampras reached the semifinals of the Australian Tennis in 1993 and became the No.1 seed the same year. In the same year he won the Wimbledon title defeating former World No. 1 Jim Courier in the final. This followed by his second kissing on the US Open.

Sampras dominated Wimbledon for the rest of the decade, winning the Wimbledon four times, which is a record in the history of Wimbledon. Samprass bid goodbye to professional tennis in 2002, bt was seen playing an exhibition match in 2006 in Houston.

Sampras followed his own style of playing which became famous among the tennis lovers. His game strategy became aggressive in the later years and started using a chip-and-charge strategy—just chip back the return and run up to the net. He is married to Ameriacan Actress and former Miss Teen USA Bridgette Wilson and is blessed with two sons.

Tags : Tennis, Australian Open, Wimbledon, grand slam, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Washington D.C., the U.S, professional tennis, Jim Courier, Jimmy Connors

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am and is filed under Tennis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.