CAMELOT FANTASIES

I am glad you like him, herc. He's really one of the greatest and most gracious players in history of tennis. It was an incredible combination of honest and low key personality, perfect game and lethal mental strength.

People those who never followed him or followed him selectively don't really know how difficult a job it was to break through among living legends and then establish his own authority over all others within 5 years of turning pro. And how difficult it was to stay No. 1 for six straight years from 1993 to 1998 while beating most players week in week out.

In fact, he would have stayed No. in 1999 as well but he had to withdrew from AO and had to withdraw from USO too in the same year due to his sudden back injury. He was on a winning streak (24) before withdrawing from USO and was almost in tears because he really didn't want to miss US Open too.

And despite schooling Agassi in the 1999 Wimbledon final in straight sets, Sampras still went on to lose his No. 1 ranking to Agassi the next day. Had the back injury not happened at that crucial time just 2 two weeks before USO (I recall it happening during Cincinnati Masters), Sampras would have most like won the USO and would have ended the No. 1 ranking for the 7 straight years since he also won the year-end beating Agassi and after coming back from injury that kept him away from tennis a few month that year.

And after 1999, after that back injury, Sampras was never the same player again. In fact, he played with a lot of pain both at Wimbledon and USO after that but he would never openly talk about it so no one really knew. His pain so much at times that not only he was unable to practice before a big mach but he would also think about withdrawing during a Slam (especially at Wimbledon) at times but he kept on going despite all that.

He was as great a player as it can be who came through so many adversities and obstacles in his life and remained quite about most things.  His parents and family lived from pay check to pay check and yet this little young man had a very big dream and he pursued it like nothing else.