Roger Federer (SUI) v Pete Sampras (USA)
Men's 4th Round - 2001
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In many ways Federer is much like the man he succeeded at the All England Club in 2001. Federer showed his former idol the door with a sensational performance. The fourth-round thriller ended Sampras' remarkable reign - at least for the moment.
Tennis connoisseurs knew it would be a fascinating encounter
- the 29-year-old Sampras, unbeaten in 31 matches at Wimbledon
but looking strangely vulnerable, against the 19-year-old
for whom great things were forecast.
The great man had lost in the second round of his favourite Wimbledon warm-up, the Stella Artois tournament at London's Queen's Club, to the rising Australian Lleyton Hewitt, and dropped two sets in his second-round match against Great Britain's Barry Cowan.
Yet the 15th-seeded Federer was few people's favourite to topple the grand master as he walked out for his first match on Centre Court on an overcast July Monday. His talent was undoubted, but since reaching the quarter-finals at Roland Garros three weeks earlier, he had lost to Pat Rafter in Halle and Hewitt in s'Hertogenbosch, suggesting he was not quite ready to beat the biggest names.
Federer was always ahead in the three-hour 41-minute match. He won the first and third sets - the first with a little luck, having had a dubious serve called in his favour and profiting from a lucky net cord in a 9-7 tiebreak - and was serving first in the fifth. As the fifth set neared its climax, the tension mounted. Could the young pretender, still thought of as a work in progress, overcome the man for whom the Centre Court had become, in Boris Becker's words, his living room?
The crucial moment came in the 12th game of the fifth set. Federer said later he had become aware of Sampras' tendency to serve wide to the forehand from the deuce court on big points, so when Federer had two match points at 15-40, there was some calculated guesswork in the cleanly struck forehand return that ended the match.
Though fiercely competitive, Sampras was always dignified in defeat. In his post-match news conference he said: "There are a lot of guys coming up, but Roger is a bit extra-special. He has a great all-round game, like me doesn't get too emotional, and is a great athlete." Little did Sampras realise just how extra-special Federer was to become.
Despite his ignominious exit to George Bastl the following year, Sampras had one final hurrah, winning the US Open in 2002. It proved his last tournament, and his Wimbledon defeat to Federer remains their sole match. At least at tour level.
Early in 2007, Federer was preparing for the Indian Wells tournament in California and needed a practice partner. Aware that Sampras was looking to make a comeback on the seniors' circuit, Federer phoned the Californian and asked if he wanted to hit some balls. Sampras said yes, apparently without hesitation. Federer declined to give the result, but the mutual respect between the two most recent greats of Wimbledon history is clearly alive and well.
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