A tough draw riddled with MULTIPLE great clay talents and French Open champions is tougher than Nadal IMO.
In every year except 1996 Sampras either lost to the first strong clay courter he faced, or didnt even face a strong clay courter since he lost to someone who wouldnt even qualify as that. Thus for each year you are really only comparing one player in his case, not multiple. If you want to talk about someone who suffered from the 90s clay depth to begin with, they would have to first be better than Sampras on clay to have encountered the depth. Like say Agassi, Corretja, Rios, Mantilla, might have suffered from the clay depth, not Sampras.
1992: Agassi was first strong clay courter he faced and lost. Best opponent before that was the world #32 Carl Uwe Steeb.
1993: Bruguera was the first strong clay courter he faced and lost. Nadal > Bruguera obviously. His biggest win en route to Bruguera was unseeded clay court master Malivai Washington.
1994: Courier was the first strong clay courter he faced and lost. A past prime Courier too. Nadal > Courier (especialy 94 Courier). The only player he faced before that even in the top 100 was world #25 doubles specialist/fast courter Paul Haarhuis.
1995: Gilbert Schaller was the first person he faced and lost.
1996: his one strong performance where he might have suffered some from the deep clay field for the only time ever.
1997: lost in 3rd round to a nowhere near his prime Magnus Norman, the world #65. His best win in the 1st 2 rounds was world #31 Francisco Clavet, a decent clay courter, who never made a slam quarterfinal.
1998: lost in 1st round to Roman Delgado.
1999: lost in 2nd round to the world #100. In fairness to Sampras that world #100 ended up making the final here, but he also won overtime in a 5th set against a guy who retired without winning a single round in a grand slam his whole career the round before that.
2000: lost in the 1st round to the clay court great Mark Philipoussis.
you get the idea. Sampras did not suffer one bit from a strong clay field, other than maybe a bit in 96 where he scored big wins (for him on clay) over a slumping/back from injury Bruguera (who was 6-5 on clay for the year), Todd Martin, and a way past his prime Courier, before getting smoked by Kafelnikov. He never faced more than 1 good clay courter (apart from 96) as he never advanced past the 1st good clay courter he faced any other year. So each can be compared directly to Nadal, nobody else, and each is far weaker.
Nadal has also been very beatable on clay the last few years. Its not as though Novak has dealt with PEAK Clay Nadal at the French recently.
Yes I am sure Sampras would have had no problem dealing with 2010-2014 Nadal at RG.
