Miami 1992 2R Jimmy Connors v Pete Sampras
- Thread starter ttwarrior1
- Start date
As I recall, Sampras was happy to get a chance to play against Jimmy. The kid had a bit too much firepower for him at this stage of things. Though I did watch a match they played on Har Tru that was much closer. There are a few points here where Jimmy gets a bead on Pete's serve...yowza!
Is that lifetime or up until that point? I forgot that Chang had that sort of success vs Sampras.
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Mustard
Bionic Poster
Agassi had a lot of success against a young Chang at Bollettieri's, and Agassi won their first 4 matches on the tour. Agassi was 2 years older, and excelled talent wise in terms of rallying ability. When Chang won the 1989 French Open, Agassi was like "How could Chang, of all people, have won a major before me?".
Courier and Chang were always evenly matched. A younger Sampras couldn't overpower Chang to shorten points like he later did.
mental midget
Hall of Fame
forgot about this one...quite the clash of eras. gotta tip the cap to connors...not much of a serve, not a big guy...but he could hit a clean ball and just had a very interesting and effective game.
Galvermegs
Professional
Connors could play well on each and every surface with even his rg record being better than petes. While many talk about sampras setting the 14 gs record for a number of years.. connors was always dangerous and able to consistently turn out winning numbers (as did lendl). However i suspect hh would favor sampras with only slower surfaces perhaps being connors' hope.
mental midget
Hall of Fame
oh for sure...pete was better.
Mustard
Bionic Poster
That's very debatable.
young Connors vs. young Sampras would've been interesting...Jimmy would have to return VERY well to stand a chance on the faster surfaces. Folks nowadays don't quite appreciate how good (and dangerous) Connors could be.
Angrybirdstar
Semi-Pro
ehh not sure. of course i think Connors would have an edge on slower hard and any kind of clay (similar to Agassi), but i think Connors would have enjoyed the challenge of beating down Sampras with angles on serve (particularly with his lefty serve and forehand, even if not as threatening as some others), and returning and passing and counterpunching on return. his pace absorption would be a great starting point and i think his movement would really transform the matchup compared to what Agassi could manage, especially indoors and on faster hard
Galvermegs
Professional
I am emphasising leading the hh. But there is no doubt in my mind sampras would hold against connors like mcenroe or borg did and have chances to break. Connors would have some chances. Its also hard to know if ao grass would be a potential equaliser as opposed to hardcourt.
IMHO, Connors was a bit better mover than Sampras, so grass would be super interesting. Might just come down to service returns and breakers. Connors could serve pretty decently on grass at times. And, he'd be at net pretty regularly too. Much different from facing Agassi. Era wise, I would guess Tanner might be the best comparison to Pete in terms of serving....but not so much off the ground. But, to me, Pete played very differently at W than he did at USO, so very hard to know what he'd do against someone like Connors. I suppose Fed was pretty much an all court guy, but with a superior serve, so again, Pete might be vulnerable. Still....very few guys could challenge him there.
sandy mayer
Semi-Pro
Sampras took the game further on than anyone before him, including Connors, Borg, McEnroe, Lendl etc. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic then took the game further than Sampras. This is the way of things with tennis.
Yes and no. The game changed with them, as did the surfaces. All the greats, at their peak, were pretty damn formidable. And each usually had 1 or more true weapons in their arsenals. I think Fed, Nadal and Djoko benefitted from fitness and health tech advancements that perhaps the others did not enjoy (or not as much). Plus those guys played far fewer tournaments each year, let alone all the exos that happened in 70's and 80's. Different times. Yet, I don't think you'll see the likes of the last big 3 any time soon.
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