Well Pistol Pete came a-riding, a-riding into town,
Holding his six gun, shooting all comers down.
He’d had many a man and was hunting even more
When he came upon a youngster, standing for the law
Now Pete pulled his piece and readied for the fight
But Little Roger stood his ground and battled through the night
Now Big Pete felt his shoulder as Young Roger’s aim was true
And with a mighty roar the giant slinger Roger slew ...
And so at last, the unbelievable has happened and the man with the thickest eyebrows in sport has finally bitten the dust, after seven incredible Wimbledon wins in the last eight years. He had been considered unbeatable, a supreme champion, a man beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, vowing to win an eighth title and then retire, a Wimbledon legend.
However, it’s more than a year since his last tournament win and Pete Sampras had laboured like a navvy in beating unknown Briton Barry Cowan over five sets in an earlier round. But no one gave the 19 year old Swiss youngster Roger Federer even the remotest chance of dethroning the Giant. And as the match toiled on into its cataclysmic fifth set, we all knew the gallant unknown would fall at the last as the Grinding Man simply broke his spirit and his heart.
Except....
It just didn’t go that way. This David was tilting at Goliath in a way that was totally unexpected, playing the game of his young life and pulling off unexpected winner after unexpected winner - he was truly awesome and saw off one of the greatest tennis players of all time in one of the best games that will ever be seen at the All England Tennis Club and finally Pete Sampras, the Great Champion, was gone and an era had ended...
I got the news by mobile phone from my wife who rang me as I was leaving work - ’Francis is out, ’ I thought she said. ’Who the hell is Francis?’ ’He’s crying...’ Now Mrs D hates Tennis but this was a very special day and she was brimming over with excitement when I returned home and blurted out the story - ’You’ve got to watch this...’
Sampras had been going for his fifth straight title which would have equalled Bjorn Borg’s record and even when he went a set down and then 2 sets to 1 down we still thought it would be Pistol Pete left standing when the dust had settled, but this was a day to remember and Federer got stronger and stronger as the day wore on to give Sampras his earliest exit in ten years of Wimbledon challenges.
Sampras was quoted after as follows: ’’Let’s not get carried away. I plan on being back for many years. The reason I play tennis is to play in these big tournaments. And the reason I stop playing will not be because of my ability but because I do not want to do it anymore. There is no reason to panic and think I cannot come back and win here again.’’ But you know he is a very, very low man on this day in history.
Sampras was born in August 1971 in Washington DC. 1988 was his first year on the pro circuit, but he made his breakthrough in 1990 when he became the youngest US Open Champion and pushed his earnings up to nearly $3 million. The following year he won the ATP Tour World Championship and in 1992 he reached his first Wimbledon semi final. It was in 1994 that he made his big breakthrough winning the Wimbledon and Australian Open championships and that kicked off his total dominance of the world game.
When he won his seventh Wimbledon title in 2000, he completed a Grand Slam set that included 4 US Opens and 2 Australian Opens, but he has never won the French title. Wimbledon was always his favourite tournament and he had seemed invincible on the turf of Southern London, but now that is all a thing of the past.
Sampras is derided as a boring automaton, a dull player who goes for percentage shots and can be summed up as the Steve Davis of Tennis. He does have his followers but his exit from the 2001 Wimbledon championships was almost universally welcomed by Tennis fans everywhere, who had grown bored at his dominance. He may be back, but I certainly hope not.