Which was the peak level of Sampras and Agassi?

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pbeam

New User
I might be wrong, but regarding Sampras - possibly in 1997. , with the exception of the 1999. Wimbledon final, according to him the best match he ever played.
Difficult to gage, though.
Agassi... well, a bit more difficult to ascertain that... He looked really strong in 1995. - now, whether that was his peak, no... he had peaks in periods even later in his career.
 
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BorgTheGOAT

Hall of Fame
Pete in 94, Agassi one year later in 95. Both had a revival in 99 where they played close to peak. Wimbledon, Cincinnati, YEC were three unbelievable performances from Pete.
 
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MissileBackHand99

New User
For Pete, I’d say 1994—coming off his first Wimby and second US Open titles, won Australia, the Sunshine Double, won Rome, and was rolling going into Paris. Didn’t win there, but won at Wimby over Goran, beat a high level Agassi (who had just won the US Open and Bercy) and then a tough 4-set final over Becker to win the Year End Championships

For Agassi, 1995 could easily be made a case for...Im gonna go with 1999. He had rebuilt his career from the absolute DEPTHS. His mind, body, and game were on one accord. Wins the French (after nearly losing in the 2nd round and getting stomped by Medvedev in the first 2 sets of the Final), gets to the Finals of Wimby (took Pete’s best ever Finals performance (in my opinion) to beat him), wins the US Open, wins Bercy gets to the Finals of the YEC, and finishes the year as #1..oh then wins Australia to start 2000 (beating Pete in an EPIC match in the Semis, and then defending champ Kafelnikov in the Finals)
 
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Thetouch

Professional
The 1999 Agassi was way more dangerous than his 1995 version. Agassi played well enough in 95 as long as he felt confident but once his confidence fell apart he couldn't deal with pressure. He would have never been able to win Paris in 95 the way he did in 99.

Sampras is kind of tough but I will go with 1995. He might have played better in 1994 but he was tougher during 1995. The Sampras that lost to Agassi at the AO 95 was not quite the same Sampras that beat Agassi at the US Open later that year. Maybe his concern for his coach might have toughened him up during that year
 
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Oval_Solid

Rookie
for agassi i would say the year or so when he was making his come back into tennis so 1999 to the early 2000s
wins the french open us open and aussie open and was a finalist in wimbledon
i think the 1995 version agassi would have lost in the french and us open which were grueling 5 set matches but agassi was playing more percentage tennis and had trained hard to be in the best shape of his life (if u watch those matches the talk was always about how hard agassi had trained and how fit he was compared to before bla bla bla)
prime agassi in a single match would maybe be in the 2000 aussie final where he had to take down a prime Kafelnikov
 
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BorgTheGOAT

Hall of Fame
Oval_Solid said:
for agassi i would say the year or so when he was making his come back into tennis so 1999 to the early 2000s
wins the french open us open and aussie open and was a finalist in wimbledon
i think the 1995 version agassi would have lost in the french and us open which were grueling 5 set matches but agassi was playing more percentage tennis and had trained hard to be in the best shape of his life (if u watch those matches the talk was always about how hard agassi had trained and how fit he was compared to before bla bla bla)
prime agassi in a single match would maybe be in the 2000 aussie final where he had to take down a prime Kafelnikov
Click to expand...
99 Agassi was strong no doubt, but I personally liked 95 Agassi more. He could actually rival Sampras (being 3-2 over the year) while in 99 he was his pigeon, and 95 Sampras was still prime, winning two slams and coming from his best year in 94. It really should be the other way round that Agassi finishes 95 as No.1 and Sampras 99.
 
BGod

BGod

Legend
For Sampras to me it was clearly 93-97. In that period he was a massive favourite for both Wimbledon and USO, very much a top contender for the Australian and even going relatively deep at the French. He was 9-0 in Finals.

Agassi is much harder to pin down. End of 94 to 96 makes a lot of sense in terms of physical prime and getting things done. But 99-01 has a great case in terms of percentages, Sunshine Double in 01 and of course his only YE #1 in 99. Obviously you have a situation where he has two short runs while Sampras dominates for half a decade.
 
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