His peak level of play was in 1993-1994. I guess that his 1994 season would rank over his 1993 one, as in 1994 he won 2 more titles overall (10 vs. 8), the YEC (in 1993 he lost in the final to Stich), and 2 more Super 9 titles (3 vs. 1). Thanks to his Italian Open title in 1994, he won big titles on every surface that year.
Still going into the RG in 1994, after he won that title in Rome and was looking to hold all 4 majors at the same time, I personally only made him the 4th favourite to triumph in Paris. I thought that the defending champion Bruguera, the young sensation Medvedev who had won the Monte-Carlo and Hamburg titles that year on the back of his Barcelona title and RG semi-final run in 1993, and Courier who was bidding to reach a 4th straight RG final, were all bigger title favourites than him.
It’s crazy that all 4 of those players were in the same (top) half of the draw and therefore had to face each other in the 2 quarters and then the 2 winners in the resulting semi. Furthermore Muster (not a beast on clay yet but still won 3 titles on the surface that year) and Agassi (posted a poor 4-4 W/L record on clay that year but had reached 2 finals and 2 more semis in his last 5 appearances at RG) also landed in the top half of the draw, facing each other in the 2nd round. So that was an extremely top heavy draw for sure. At the women’s US Open in 2007, 5 out of the 6 title favourites landed in the top half of the draw. I might make a thread on this one day.
I agree that Sampras’s 1994 could have been even better were it not for his ankle injury in the Summer. He had to withdraw from all 4 US Open lead-up tournaments that he was scheduled to play in, and went into New York completely undercooked and not close to being fully match fit. He physically hit the wall during his 4th round defeat against Yzaga. Had it not been for that injury, he could well have ended that season with 3 majors and 12-13 titles overall.