yes I agree that from a numbers perspective 9 is greater than 7 but numbers don't always tell the story. for example Federer has 8 Wimbledon titles which is one more than Sampras’ 7 yet Sampras is the greater Wimbledon champion because Federer lost three finals all to the same player and someone who loses so many times to the same player of his own generation cannot be considered the greatest at that tournament.
In that case, Sampras lost to the guy who lost in three finals. Sampras was only 29 years then. If Sampras was so much better than Federer, why did he not win more than 7 finals?
The only thing that actually makes sense is to say that Sampras was better in his first seven finals than Federer since 7-0 > 6-1. At the end of the day, 8>7.
Spare the pathetic excuse about nutrition. In the 1900-1920 (before steroids were synthesised in labs) there were male and female bodybuilders who had impressive physiques. If those guys were good enough to do that with the nutrional knowledge of more than 100 years ago, Sampras has no excuses whatsoever. Not to say that building mass is the only physical trait a tennis player is looking for, cardio matters as well.
It's just that some idiots think that our nutrition knowledge has exploded since 2010 lol. Not the case at all. We're still in the dark for lots of things, one of them being nutrition.
Someone should actually make a thread on nutrition and examine what benefits 2000s players (which Federer belongs to) had relative to 1990s players. What 100% factual benefits (with no uncertainty around it) did those players have. Not much.
Sampras wasn't adviced to eat hamburgers from the McDonald's lol.