sampras in 98 was weird
he inexplicably went out the AO meekly despite being defending champion, and was dire at indian wells and miami
he got wimbledon, then a final at cincy, one of his best masters
rafter was on fire, took him down in US SF, sampras got bitter
he then played MM events (hi vienna, hi stockholm etc), to try and stop rios from getting the year end championship
eventually rios injured himself and sampras bizarrely lost to correjita of all people, at the year end championship
sampras says in his book that the year end no 1 was an obsession
clearly took its toll on him, since he didn't even enter AO in 1999
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