An example why Sampras would have been fine today, watch this!
 

I am aware that lately there have been a few threads on how Pete would have got on today, interestingly my coach said last week he is of no doubt that Pete being a special talent would have done fine today because he would have adapted his game.

He made a very good point which was that he could pretty much beat anyone from the baseline apart from Andre but he played a game suited to the fast courts of the 90's which he would not do today!

People say that with the courts today being slower Pete would have found it tough, purely basing this on his performances on Clay, but I do not think this is accurate because Pete's biggest issue on clay was not the slowness of the surface but how he struggled to move and slide properly on the surface!

I found this clip of a couple of points Pete played V Andre to me they show in a nutshell exactly why Pete would have no problem today and IMHO at his peak would be there ot there abouts!

Have a watch and would love to hear yours thoughts :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwMtWGm3jyI

Andre admitted once that his ground game was built solely on strangling opponents slowly and that he does not really have any particular kill shot. Pete OTOH has one-punch KO power in his forehand. It seems to me that, whenever Pete decided to hustle and defend against Andre's ground game, as opposed to simply waiting around for just one opportunity to break per set, Pete could trade blows with Andre off the ground any time he wanted to. Pete could force Andre to go for sharper angles than Andre would have to go for against other opponents with less lethal weapons than Pete's forehand which Pete used often to put Andre on the defensive very quickly in rallies. Andre just never could seriously trouble Pete, not on serve, and not off the ground either. The trouble with looking at highlights such as these would seem to be that, they show Pete in one of his rare moods in which he was defending off the ground for longer than five or six strokes, which was not his normal way of doing things. If he were playing today, guys like Simon of Ferrer to say nothing of Novak, Rafa, or Roger, would be forcing Pete to play an ultra-aggressive ground game unless Pete could somehow manage to defend, say, fifteen or so strokes per rally which I don't imagine would appeal to him very much. Because Pete liked to act like he was all quiet and taciturn and that his racket would do all the talking that was necessary and there was no need to beat his chest or act showy, but deep down, it's always occurred to me about him that Pete just loved stomping on his opponents in a kind of repressed bully way or like he were exorcising some demons from his past in which others had picked on him and now it was his turn to do the pushing others around. And so he really loved dealing out beat downs in my opinion, and how, i.e., by doing so in a kind of swashbuckling manner, with his trademark slam dunks and his Ooooh Ahhhh power serving and his sizzling running forehands. If Pete had to rally more often in the way that he was doing in this clip against Andre, I really wonder what his game would look like if his opponents were systematically preventing him from pulling the trigger like Zorro, and he had to hit twice as many shots per rally before getting a look at something that he could put away, which is exactly how the modern players would be playing Pete and, bear in mind that he would not be playing 5'10" 30y/o Andre's but six foot tall retrievers/counterpunchers.

Yes, I agree that Sampras would be fine today. He has athletic gifts and talents way beyond most people who pick up a racquet. He would have adjusted and developed his game to suit the times, be it Kramer's era or Laver's or today.

Paragraphs, have you heard of them? :confused: :shock:

Excellent post, I do agree that it is always dangerous to look at a clip but I was just trying to demonstrate the technical skill would certainly hold up, you highlight an excellent point however which is that despite his great baseline play and groundies he did have that urge to want to pull the trigger and would he have adapted had the patience to not be able to go for it sooner and having to play that way all the time?

Very hard to say I guess all we can say is that Federer is an example of someone who did make the transistion himself, if we look back at the 2003 Wimbledon final v the Scud he pretty much serve and volleyed the whole time, even though he plays a large % of his game from the back court its still on the offensive in a different way to the rest of the big 4 maybe that is the kind of way Pete's style would have played out?

Sorry folks, Nadal would kill him, easily.

not too sure about that. even on the slowest hardcourts pete could probably hit through a lot of the loopy topspin. think Soderling/delpo/bergych on steroids, not to mention his serve and all court game.

you guys underrate pete. the guy was a mentally and physically strong and has great touch. he was an all-court player, not just a serve and a forehand. On contemporary hardcourts it would be interesting, even fun to watch, but on fast hardcourts or grass i don't see rafa troubling him at all.

Pete Vs. Rafa would have been fun to watch. we can only speculate about hypotheticals.

I don't comment on topics when the videos linked to look like they were recorded using a potato.

No he would not, not on hc and grass, don't be ridiculous. I can't believe there are people who question whether a player like Sampras, a guy who won 14 slams would be ok today and wonder whether he could adjust his game. It must be a joke. You have mugs out there in the men's field below the top five who can't consistently win their way out of paper bags and you are questioning what Sampras would do against these same mugs? :confused:

if Nadal owns Roger and Roger is better then Pete in almost every way Nadal would blow him out the water

It does not work like that my friend! Federer is better than Rosol in every way.. didn't count for much did it?

I wouldn't use this logic

It does not work that way at all in tennis. It is about match-ups. I am no big Sampras fan but I can't see how Sampras would have a losing record against Nadal on faster hc or grass.

You kidding? You think Djokovic would play around with him like Agassi did on that bh cross court rally? No freaking way! Boom down the line-bye bye Petros

The courts, racquet tech and style of opponents surely make it just too difficult to make any concrete judgement. "Sorry folks, Nadal would kill him easily" How can you even say that? Sure odds are nadal would win, but who the hell could say it in such matter of fact terms?

BTW my fave part of that video was how excited the crowd got after 10 shots...it isnt quite like that now P

I think that part of what Rafa may have been able to exploit in Roger all those years was Roger's deep seated urge to produce highlight reel shots. Pete I believe had some of this same urge to appear flashy, but not nearly as much of it as Roger, I would argue. Roger overtly craves being adored for his shot making, particularly from the back court, whereas Pete seemed fully satisfied knocking of a volley, and Pete didn't rush a developing point from his baseline they way Roger sometimes does...Pete was content to play defense by hitting deep floaters longer than Roger seems wired to be able to do comfortably. This difference between them would only help Pete when facing Rafa, because Rafa has feasted on Roger's mindset in my opinion simply by getting one more ball back while seldom trying to do anything offensive with it, which I think at times has causeed Roger to short- circuit as though he may have been thinking, "WTF is wrong with this kid? He can hit the ball a ton but all he wants to do with me is push it back. **Does not compute!! Does not compute!!**" Pete can play that game too, though, and I think would actually force Rafa--better than Roger has been able to--into playing more offensively.

I can imagine easily Pete not troubling himself over which way to hit a backhand against Rafa. Either Pete would slow roll it back hitting a kind of moon ball of his own (which Roger would *ghast, the horror** never even think of trying) or Pete would simply slice it back, which Rafa of course would then run around to hit a forehand. Pete then could afford to camp out in his backhand corner because his runnign forehand was so lethal. And I do not believe for one moment that Pete would not burn Rafa (who does not move to his left very well) with Pete's running forehand especially up the line to Rafa's forehand.

Anyway when we talk about how Pete would compete today, there are at least 2 ways to consider the question :

A/ Pete against current ATP field but on the 90's faster courts

B/ Pete against the current ATP field on nowadays slower courts

Case A/ I don't see how it could be doubtable that Pete would play his usual game and would demolish everybody, except Federer against whom he would probably split victrories.

Case B/ I think Pete's godly talent would allow him to still shine nowadays, but the question is : would he have to adapt his game or not to compete against the big four (in my mind the big four are the only current players who combine huge firepower + the ability to oppose a great defense and force the attacking opponant to hit one more shot)? I think that against anybody outside the big four Pete would just dominate without having to change his game, because outside of the big 4, if current players have great court coverage, they lack some firepower (Exemple Ferrer), or if they have Firepower their court coverages are not so great (exemple Berdych).

Of course the question exclude any comparison on red clay, because everybody knows that on red clay Pete just sucks, no matter who he faces and when.

that said, tell me how pete was on slow surfaces again...

the more fascinating question is, how would nadal do against pete in the 90's
and how would pete do against nadal today?

Pete could own on blue clay though

Sorry, he probably wouldn't. Federer has more strengths and less weaknesses than Sampras and he is behind the block to Djokovic and Rafa. Sampras' backhand is much weaker than federer's. People would just target it and hit heaps of spin until it breaks down just like they do to fed. Watch that video you posted, everything to his backhand he runs around to avoid hitting it. He did this when guys weren't using crazy poly spin strings. Imagine what guys would do now to his backhand. There's only so much running around your weakness you can do until people start to yo-yo you side to side and you can't run around it anymore. You love sampras, doesn't mean you can make stuff up like RAFA2005RG just to give a nod to your guy. I would never give something an unfair bias unless it earned proper recognition.