Exposing the legend of Sampras

Sport said:
Prime for prime, yes it is. No doubt about that.

But career-wise, Borg simply retired too young and Sampras outweighs him in Slams and weeks at #1.
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Also, YE at #1. I doubt Borg would have the advantage over Pete on grass or hard courts. Clay, of course, is not debatable. Borg rarely or never, beat Connors or McEnroe at the USO and Pete was better that both on hard courts, IMO.
 
thrust said:
Also, YE at #1. I doubt Borg would have the advantage over Pete on grass or hard courts. Clay, of course, is not debatable. Borg rarely or never, beat Connors or McEnroe at the USO and Pete was better that both on hard courts, IMO.
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Yes, to say that Pete does NOT have dominance would be a lie. He won 5 US Open titles although spread over 12 years. Both did not have 3 slam years and while Borg had more multi slam years , Sampras had more slams as well as weeks at number 1.

Also Borg record over the field is great but so was Pete's until 98/99. He lost so many matches in last 3 years of his career. If Pete retires after Wimbledon 2000, he would have what 13/15 slams won in the final? That is also dominant.

Borg had 11/16 which is less dominant than Sampras.

On top of that, Sampras and 90s field is strictly suffering due to very high contrast between grass and clay. Borg era was always lauded as polar opposite and such stuff for clay vs grass but I don't know when it would be easier to win channel slam more in 70s or 90s
 
thrust said:
Also, YE at #1. I doubt Borg would have the advantage over Pete on grass or hard courts. Clay, of course, is not debatable. Borg rarely or never, beat Connors or McEnroe at the USO and Pete was better that both on hard courts, IMO.
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Borg did beat Connors at HC USO btw. In semifinals.
 
GRASScaraz said:
Sampras had only two years in his career, 1993 and 1994, where he was a truly dominant #1 player, and even in those years he failed to win more than 2 Slam titles.

Sampras had a very one-dimensional game after 1996, and by the end of his career, other players on the tour were openly contemptuous of his inability to play from the baseline. At Roland Garros, Sampras was just another guy in the Top 100 struggling to win a couple of rounds.

While the crown jewel of Pete's career, his 7 Wimby titles, is nothing to sneeze at, you have to consider that out of the few occasions from 1992-2001 when he played a big serve-and-volley player who had an on day, three times he was beaten (Ivo in '92, Krajicek in '96, Feds in '01), and a fourth time (Philipoussis in '99), his opponent retired injured after winning the first set.

Two of the Pistol's USOpen victories against Agassi ('95 and '02)were due, plain and simple, to Agassi getting screwed by the idiot USTA schedulers forcing him to play late into Saturday night in his semifinal matches.

Borg skipped the Australian Open during his 9 year period of dominance. If Borg had bothered showing up in his prime he would have won the Australian four or five times, giving him 15 or 16 Slam titles, and people would have Borg ahead of the servebot.
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Sampras had a far tougher era than any other generation. At his best he was arguably GOAT. He was YE1 6 years in a row, how much more consistent do you want him to be?
Sampras prioritised two slams, W and USO, that was what his whole training regime centred round much like Nadal prioritized April-September. Sampras never was that bothered about a Career Slam. He wanted the records at W and USO which he got by time he retired. Obviously Federer usurped him eventually and no body disputes Federer was the greater of the two, but not by much.
Borg v Sampras is a very close call. Sampras though was better on hard and grass so he just gets the nod over Borg, but again its wafer thin and arguable either way.
Big 3 obessesives dont like this fact, but Borg and Sampras were definitely their equal for the most part, and any superiority the Big 3 had over those two icons is wafer thin.
 
Sport said:
Prime for prime, yes it is. No doubt about that.

But career-wise, Borg simply retired too young and Sampras outweighs him in Slams and weeks at #1.
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what? LOL. While both are legends the reality is at the Biggest 3 majors on each of the 3 main surfaces Sampras would beat Borg at W all the time and USO most times and lose to Borg all the time at the FO. Basically the USO was the tiebreaker between them but Sampras clearly has the upper hand there.
 
messiahrobins said:
Sampras had a far tougher era than any other generation. At his best he was arguably GOAT. He was YE1 6 years in a row, how much more consistent do you want him to be?
Sampras prioritised two slams, W and USO, that was what his whole training regime centred round much like Nadal prioritized April-September. Sampras never was that bothered about a Career Slam. He wanted the records at W and USO which he got by time he retired. Obviously Federer usurped him eventually and no body disputes Federer was the greater of the two, but not by much.
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Not by much? lol

Fed's lead over Sampras is bigger than any lead Djokodal have over him. 6 Slams, a French, more Wimbledons, more Aussies.
 
Rosstour said:
Not by much? lol

Fed's lead over Sampras is bigger than any lead Djokodal have over him. 6 Slams, a French, more Wimbledons, more Aussies.
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I think we need to inflate the old era players slams by around 10% by the decade.

So Borg 11 after 30 years becomes 16

Sampras 14 becomes 17

Federer 20 becomes 22.
Nadal 22
Djokovic 24

Ending open era top 5 like this
Djokovic 24
Nadal 22
Federer 22
Sampras 17
Borg 16

And yes Difference between Fed and Sampras of 5 is far more than difference between Fed and Rafole of 2.
 
mental midget said:
for sure. but sampras=not good, a little tougher to back up : )

sampras the servebot in particular is way off...exhibit 1 of many:
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This was a barnburner of a match. A lightning quick court with two talented guys ready and willing to use those talents to attack and impose their will from everywhere (serves, returns, baseline, forecourt) made for a spectacular show.
 
Sport said:
Prime for prime, yes it is. No doubt about that.

But career-wise, Borg simply retired too young and Sampras outweighs him in Slams and weeks at #1.
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Sampras was the one who first brought in the slam count obsession. Before players looked at their overall careers using broader criteria. For instance, next to never is McEnroe's achievement of 5 WCT Finals wins. mentioned. Particularly is late 70s/early 80s wins there should be mentioned in his career achievements.

Is you look at Sampras' career - yes he is great on slams and season end finals - but his achievement sharply drop away after that. He has relatively few Masters 1000 level wins and 500 level wins.
 
Rosstour said:
Not by much? lol

Fed's lead over Sampras is bigger than any lead Djokodal have over him. 6 Slams, a French, more Wimbledons, more Aussies.
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Federer had the benefit of homogenized conditions and...favorable competition to assist him to his slam count, as well as training and recovery methods that allowed him to play nearly 9 years longer than Pete. And the bit about homogenization leading to Federer breaking Sampras's records are Federer's words, not mine.
 
GuyForget said:
Pistol would destroy Borg on anything other than clay, Borg wouldnt be getting a racket on those serves which were 30mph quicker than Mcenroe's + deeper/better placed. Borg's biomechanics are from a bygone era, Pete's would hold up against Djokovic or Federer on 90's grass
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Pete would hold up against big 3 anywhere because the level of play of the game in the 90s is as high as present. He would struggle on clay not because he would be moving slower or hitting 20 mph slower, but just because he struggled on the surface in general. The difference between now and the 90s is consistency, which is down to technology and modern science allowing players to replicate shots and performance far more easily and reliably than in the 90s.

Borg, while outstanding, played at a level distinctly below the 90s and present. If he were dealing with the power and speed of Pistol's time, he may have suffered more wear and tear and well have had worse years and less dominance.
 
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Holmes said:
Federer had the benefit of homogenized conditions and...favorable competition to assist him to his slam count, as well as training and recovery methods that allowed him to play nearly 9 years longer than Pete. And the bit about homogenization leading to Federer breaking Sampras's records are Federer's words, not mine.
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Homogenized conditions wouldn't have helped PETE

Slowing down grass wouldn't have helped him win more Wimbledons and slower hard courts wouldn't have helped him pile up AOs and more USO

The one surface that wasn't homogenized is clay, and Sampras was not half as good as Fed there anyway.
 
Mustard said:
The same McEnroe lost 7 straight matches against Lendl from 1981 to January 1983, winning only 1 set out of 20 sets played! Yet some people say that Borg ran away from that McEnroe.
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True. Borg was amazing. McEnroe or Lendl was the indoor player of the 80s decade in terms of achievement. Even so Borg has a superior H2H over McEnroe in indoor play. The idea that Borg was running away from McEnroe has always been a complete myth. He was still able to beat McEnroe in non-sactioned events like the Suntory Cup in 1983. He wasn't scared, he was just burnt out.
 
Rosstour said:
Homogenized conditions wouldn't have helped PETE

Slowing down grass wouldn't have helped him win more Wimbledons and slower hard courts wouldn't have helped him pile up AOs and more USO

The one surface that wasn't homogenized is clay, and Sampras was not half as good as Fed there anyway.
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Making most surfaces play to Pete's strength like fast, slick grass the way most surfaces played to Fed's strengths like medium-slow, consistent bouncing hard would have made Pete a 20 slam winner within his shorter career.
 
Holmes said:
Making most surfaces play to Pete's strength like fast, slick grass the way most surfaces played to Fed's strengths like medium-slow, consistent bouncing hard would have made Pete a 20 slam winner within his shorter career.
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Most surfaces did play to his strength though. Hard and grass were much quicker back then. He was helped not hurt.
 
This thread starter by OP is to start a forum war, nothing else.

As for Pete, Borg and other generational talent, it doesn't make sense to compare across generations.
In his generation Pete was the top player. He won what he needed to and that matters, not comparison with players 20 years later
 
zagor said:
Borg > anyone is a defensible position.
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IMO, the Big 3 have a tangible advantage over Borg. It's not just the number of Grand Slam titles, where Fedalovic have surpassed him by a steamer (and even if Borg had played longer, I don't think he would have reached +20 GS titles, I see it somewhere between 15-17 majors), but unlike Borg, they have completed a career Grand Slam (Djoker even has three sets of career GS). And they managed to return to the great gaming level and win Grand Slams after a game crisis.
 
Sampras was #1 in 1995, where he competed against a fellow ATG at his peak (I can't remember if that happened in the last 40-50 years, maybe during a brief period of the Lendl - Wilander rivalry), played three Slam finals (winning two), took two Masters titles and won the Davis Cup on a surface he was far from being an expert on. So while not as dominant as in 1994 or 1997, his competition was top notch (Agassi, Becker, Chang, Courier, Muster, all these guys played great tennis).

I agree that he wasn't as superior as Borg over the field for an extended period, Bjorn's 1978-1980 was a domination of a single player over his opponents that was only surpassed by Fed's 2004-2007 (and even that is debatable due to pretty polarized conditions Borg had to deal with).
 
zagor said:
Borg > anyone is a defensible position.
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He was undoubtedly great across surfaces. But as soon as he had a challenger, he left the game.

Most people look at tennis a mental game and mental strength as a key component.

How can one who quit as soon as he had a rival be in the conversation for the greatest.
 
thrust said:
Also, YE at #1. I doubt Borg would have the advantage over Pete on grass or hard courts. Clay, of course, is not debatable. Borg rarely or never, beat Connors or McEnroe at the USO and Pete was better that both on hard courts, IMO.
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Give Pete some wooden racquets and I'd favor Borg in the matchup. And, who knows, maybe Borg would've adapted well to the 1990s racquets' technology.

All of this is untestable, therefore...
 
Barton said:
Many times I want to have Borg ahead of Sampras. A little voice in my head tells me that he is ahead.
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I think Borg may have been better at his best.

I will say his early departure from tennis does also flatter him in some hidden ways. We didn’t see him really do full decade long battle with McEnroe, nor do we know how he would’ve handled the emergence of prime Lendl, Edberg, and Becker and thus it’s all projection how it may have gone. It could be that he peaked young and wouldn’t do well at all in the mid 80s… ultimately we will never know.
 
Borg shot himself in the foot when he retired so early on. He could have some shot at usopen and who knows if he really wins it. There is very high possibility he does NOT based on Andy Murray career.

I don't think anyone has lost 4 slam finals at an event and then went on to win.

Fed and Nole both lost 3 finals. Then won rg.

Agassi lost 2 and won rg.

Lendl lost 2 and never won wimby.

Murray lost 5 and never won ao.

Very possible that after 26 in his days , Borg doesn't win uso ever.
 
The way I see it

Sampras is better at ao than Borg at uso

Sampras and Borg both don't have anything at rg and ao respectively.

To compare Borg uso to Sampras rg would be forgetting that Sampras won slams at ao.
 
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