The myth that Sampras didn't really try in Masters-level tournaments (off clay)

[AnOctorokForDinner]

For the purpose of this topic, let's place the relevant timeframe (when Pete was a legit contender) between his first and last Masters finals, i.e. 1991 Cincinnati - 2001 Indian Wells.

Let us now examine Sampras's non-clay masters results during that period, by venue.

Indian Wells:

2 W (1994, def Edberg & Korda; 1995, def Edberg & Agassi), 1 F (2001, Agassi), 2 QF (Haarhuis, Enqvist), 5 early losses (Hlasek, Volkov, Ulihrach, Muster, Mantilla).

Summary: 2 straight titles against strong opposition, but disappointing otherwise. No consistency.

Miami:

3 W (1993, def Krajicek, Korda, Washington; 1994, def Korda, Courier, Agassi; 2000, def Hewitt, Kuerten), 1 F (1995, Agassi), 2 SF + 2 QF (Chang, Ivanisevic, Bruguera, Krajicek), 1 early loss (Ferreira).

Summary: 3 titles against strong opposition and five deep losses to quality players, just one early loss.

Canada:

Played just four times during that period. Results: 1 F (1995, Agassi), 2 QF (Agassi, Safin), 1 early loss (Steven).

Summary: mostly skipped, though has 3/4 decent losses when played. Didn't want to overexert himself before the USO by going all out in the Canada-Cincy double, I guess.

Cincinnati:

3 W (1992, def Korda, Edberg, Lendl; 1997, def Kafelnikov, Muster; 1999, def Krajicek, Agassi, Rafter); 2 F (Forget, Rafter), 1 SF + 2 QF (Edberg, Stich, Enqvist), 1 early loss (Henman).

Summary: 3 titles (2 against strong opposition) and five deep losses to quality players, only one early loss.

Stockholm/Essen/Stuttgart:

1 F (1996, Becker in 5); 5 SF (Forget, Becker x2, Muster, Krajicek), 2 earlier losses (Costa, Krajicek). Also SF in 1990 (Becker).

Summary: no titles but very tough luck with competition, losing to Becker x4, worst match-up Krajicek x2, peak Forget and peak Muster. Only one poor loss to Costa. That's what strong era looks like.

Paris:

2 W (1995, def Courier, Becker; 1997, def Korda, Kafelnikov, Bjorkman), 2 F (Forget, Rusedski), 2 QF (Ivanisevic, Agassi), 2 early losses (Leconte, Rosset).

Summary: 2 titles and four deep losses to quality players (though the Rusedski final was a poor performance).



Turns out Sampras wasn't bad in non-clay masters at all, other than mostly shirking Canada and a funny lack of consistency in IW, wonder why that would be. Elsewhere (Miami, Cincy, 1st fall, Paris), Petros was in fact solid and rarely suffered an early loss, but the field was too deep and too cool to get rekt at the mere sight of PETE, and were thus able to score many wins over him when he wasn't 110% dialed in as in GS, but still very good and formidable. How's that for epicness, hm?

 

[Heuristic]

That's what strong era looks like.

You think Becker and Krajicek is a strong era???? How about Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic all in one? The three greatest tennis players of all time on paper, all competing against each other. Sampras era pales in comparison.

 

[AnOctorokForDinner]

You think Becker and Krajicek is a strong era???? How about Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic all in one? The three greatest tennis players of all time on paper, all competing against each other. Sampras era pales in comparison.

Strong era, not great era. For example, the era RIGHT NAO is technically greater than any number of years ago since the Big 3 have acquired even more achievements since then, yet clearly it is not as strong as 2011-12 or 2009, most obviously.

 

[Heuristic]

Strong era, not great era. For example, the era RIGHT NAO is technically greater than any number of years ago since the Big 3 have acquired even more achievements since then, yet clearly it is not as strong as 2011-12 or 2009, most obviously.

.[/QUOTE]

A lot of Sampras stats from the 90s are grossly inflated due to inferior opposition. Some of his Wimbledon and hardcourt stats are better than Federers, even though Feds dominance was more prominent. Or the conditions were simply too fast to compare with Federers era.

 

[Heuristic]

Yearly match statistics that is..

 

[Heuristic]

I'll give you one stat to digest in this supposedly "strong" era. Pete Sampras won 90%(80/89) first serves in the 95 US Open final. This was against none other than Andre Agassi. There is no player on the ATP circuit that wins 90% of his first serves, and Sampras wouldn't have stats anywhere near that if we took todays players in a time machine to the US Open 1995 and faced the Sampras service games.

The state of the sport was clearly low when it comes to returning, with such cartoonish stats.

 

[Moose Malloy]

I'll give you one stat to digest in this supposedly "strong" era. Pete Sampras won 90%(80/89) first serves in the 95 US Open final. This was against none other than Andre Agassi. There is no player on the ATP circuit that wins 90% of his first serves, and Sampras wouldn't have stats anywhere near that if we took todays players in a time machine to the US Open 1995 and faced the Sampras service games.

The state of the sport was clearly low when it comes to returning, with such cartoonish stats.

I find your picking this stat from one match and using as an example of a 'cartoonish stat' to be rather strange.
First the stat is incorrect, sampras only won 86% of his first serves that day(don't trust the atp website on 90s matches, they have many errors, and there are several threads around here on those errors)
Second, players today often have matches where they win 90% of their first serves, so I don't quite understand the logic. in fact today, players overall hold at a much higher rate than they did in the 90s(again this topic has been discussed many times) and players broke a lot more often in the 90s. The only player from the 90s who has as high hold numbers as the best of today is Sampras, which shows how unusual a player he was for his time.

 

[Moose Malloy]

@AnOctorokForDinner

Masters series events weren't required events in the 90s. Yes they offered a lot of points and money, but it just wasn't necessary to excel at those events in order to be #1 like it is today. There was a best of 14 results system back then and sampras much preferred playing Indianapolis than Canada(it was regularly voted the players favorite event on tour back then and conditions there were more similar to USO than Canada)

No one is saying that sampras didn't care about Masters events, but he wasn't exactly going to kill himself in order to win one.

I think a pretty telling comment that sort of summarized his career was made by sampras early in his career. In 1990, 19 year old Sampras won his first career title in Philadelphia(a very prestigious event at the time, probably on par with most of the newly created masters series at the time) You would think any young player would be ecstatic at winning their first title.
In the press conference after he was asked about big this was for his career - he said "it's great, but let's be honest no one remembers who won Philadelphia." I think it's safe to say he felt the same way about Masters series.

 

[IowaGuy]

A lot of Sampras stats from the 90s are grossly inflated due to inferior opposition. Some of his Wimbledon and hardcourt stats are better than Federers, even though Feds dominance was more prominent. Or the conditions were simply too fast to compare with Federers era.

Spoken like someone relatively new to watching tennis

I suppose Borg's 1978 dominance, McEnroe's 1984 dominance, or Wilander's 1988 dominance were also due to inferior competition?

 

[IowaGuy]

Sampras wouldn't have stats anywhere near that if we took todays players in a time machine to the US Open 1995 and faced the Sampras service games.

You have obviously never been to a Sampras or Agassi match.

To think that modern players such as Shapo or Zverev would fare better against Sampras' serve than Agassi did is a good example or recency bias...

Djok or Nadal - sure, they would fare as well or better than Agassi. But they are definitely the exception amongst todays players...

 

[Moses85]

Same 4 guys reach all the semis and finals = strong competition. Ok sure.

 

[KG1965]

For the purpose of this topic, let's place the relevant timeframe (when Pete was a legit contender) between his first and last Masters finals, i.e. 1991 Cincinnati - 2001 Indian Wells.

Let us now examine Sampras's non-clay masters results during that period, by venue.

Indian Wells:

2 W (1994, def Edberg & Korda; 1995, def Edberg & Agassi), 1 F (2001, Agassi), 2 QF (Haarhuis, Enqvist), 5 early losses (Hlasek, Volkov, Ulihrach, Muster, Mantilla).

Summary: 2 straight titles against strong opposition, but disappointing otherwise. No consistency.

Miami:

3 W (1993, def Krajicek, Korda, Washington; 1994, def Korda, Courier, Agassi; 2000, def Hewitt, Kuerten), 1 F (1995, Agassi), 2 SF + 2 QF (Chang, Ivanisevic, Bruguera, Krajicek), 1 early loss (Ferreira).

Summary: 3 titles against strong opposition and five deep losses to quality players, just one early loss.

Canada:

Played just four times during that period. Results: 1 F (1995, Agassi), 2 QF (Agassi, Safin), 1 early loss (Steven).

Summary: mostly skipped, though has 3/4 decent losses when played. Didn't want to overexert himself before the USO by going all out in the Canada-Cincy double, I guess.

Cincinnati:

3 W (1992, def Korda, Edberg, Lendl; 1997, def Kafelnikov, Muster; 1999, def Krajicek, Agassi, Rafter); 2 F (Forget, Rafter), 1 SF + 2 QF (Edberg, Stich, Enqvist), 1 early loss (Henman).

Summary: 3 titles (2 against strong opposition) and five deep losses to quality players, only one early loss.

Stockholm/Essen/Stuttgart:

1 F (1996, Becker in 5); 5 SF (Forget, Becker x2, Muster, Krajicek), 2 earlier losses (Costa, Krajicek). Also SF in 1990 (Becker).

Summary: no titles but very tough luck with competition, losing to Becker x4, worst match-up Krajicek x2, peak Forget and peak Muster. Only one poor loss to Costa. That's what strong era looks like.

Paris:

2 W (1995, def Courier, Becker; 1997, def Korda, Kafelnikov, Bjorkman), 2 F (Forget, Rusedski), 2 QF (Ivanisevic, Agassi), 2 early losses (Leconte, Rosset).

Summary: 2 titles and four deep losses to quality players (though the Rusedski final was a poor performance).



Turns out Sampras wasn't bad in non-clay masters at all, other than mostly shirking Canada and a funny lack of consistency in IW, wonder why that would be. Elsewhere (Miami, Cincy, 1st fall, Paris), Petros was in fact solid and rarely suffered an early loss, but the field was too deep and too cool to get rekt at the mere sight of PETE, and were thus able to score many wins over him when he wasn't 110% dialed in as in GS, but still very good and formidable. How's that for epicness, hm?

It seems to me a good thread that in a calm and non-aggressive way centers an actual problem of Sampras, a problem that media and fans have underestimated in the 90s because a dozen Masters1000 won seemed an adequate number because there was no comparison with the past . But now it is clear that Sampras has won a few Masters1000 for a number of reasons:
- extremely high second-level competition (at least 15 players could beat Sampras on hc in BO3);
- the feeling that Pete was almost only interested in USO and Wimbly (he prepared himself little for the other two slams);
- Sampras format BO5 >>> BO3

 

[Heuristic]

You have obviously never been to a Sampras or Agassi match.

To think that modern players such as Shapo or Zverev would fare better against Sampras' serve than Agassi did is a good example or recency bias...

Djok or Nadal - sure, they would fare as well or better than Agassi. But they are definitely the exception amongst todays players...

Wawrinka would stomp Krajicek, Becker, Ivanesivic etc.

 

[AnOctorokForDinner]

Wawrinka would stomp Krajicek, Becker, Ivanesivic etc.

Amazing trolling, mah boi. You are the trollerest, huzzah!

 

[Heuristic]

Amazing trolling, mah boi. You are the trollerest, huzzah!

Oh I forgot, Let's not neglect Henman in that very deep field.

 

[IowaGuy]

Wawrinka would stomp Krajicek, Becker, Ivanesivic etc.

Well, probably not on grass, considering Wawrinka has never made it past the quarterfinals in 14 years at Wimbledon, whereas Krajicek, Becker, and Goran all won Wimbledon

 

[SamprasisGOAT]

@AnOctorokForDinner

Masters series events weren't required events in the 90s. Yes they offered a lot of points and money, but it just wasn't necessary to excel at those events in order to be #1 like it is today. There was a best of 14 results system back then and sampras much preferred playing Indianapolis than Canada(it was regularly voted the players favorite event on tour back then and conditions there were more similar to USO than Canada)

No one is saying that sampras didn't care about Masters events, but he wasn't exactly going to kill himself in order to win one.

I think a pretty telling comment that sort of summarized his career was made by sampras early in his career. In 1990, 19 year old Sampras won his first career title in Philadelphia(a very prestigious event at the time, probably on par with most of the newly created masters series at the time) You would think any young player would be ecstatic at winning their first title.
In the press conference after he was asked about big this was for his career - he said "it's great, but let's be honest no one remembers who won Philadelphia." I think it's safe to say he felt the same way about Masters series.

What a top notch post my friend!

Sampras genuinely only really raised his game for grand slam tournaments. Like he did in the big moments in big matches. Raised his game time and time again.

I reckon his priorities in order were

1. Grand slams
2. Year end number 1/ weeks at number one
3. Year end championship or WTF for the modern day merchants
4. Davis cup
5. Grand slam cup
6. Then it was the best tournament the prepare for the next slam. However big or small.

Its obviously totally different today. But I liked the way Pete did things to be honest.

 

[Heuristic]

Sampras genuinely only really raised his game for grand slam tournaments..

That can't be right since he was the consistent world nr 1.

 

[SamprasisGOAT]

That can't be right since he was the consistent world nr 1.

It can be right and it is right. Which masters tournaments did he raise his game then? Or are you saying he wasn’t capable of winning more masters tournaments? Because if you are, you are totally clueless and you have no knowledge of petes career