August 25, 2003

Pete Sampras, who is perhaps the most relentlessly boring athlete to ever dominate an individual sport, bows out from tennis today with little fanfare.

posted by rcade to tennis at 08:13 AM - 5 comments

And in an effort to end the era of the mid-90s bloc of players, Michael Chang enters his final U.S. Open today. Congrats to Pete on a great career. He may have had the personality of a mushroom, but he was never boring to watch play.

posted by Ufez Jones at 09:33 AM on August 25, 2003

Ufez, I agree that people who love tennis probably love to watch Sampras, but I bet most casual fans--people who tune in for Wimbledon, the US Open, and little else--find his game boring. Impressive, yes, but in the same way as watching, say, the world's largest bulldozer: awesome for a few minutes, repetitious thereafter. But since that's how I like to play, I don't mind watching it, either. Personally, I think he's the greatest ever, and his failure to win the French isn't much of a knock. FWIW, at the other end of the playing-style spectrum, some of my favorite players to watch include Marcelo Rios, Henri Leconte, and, in the fairly-oscure category, Ramesh Krishnan. And the all-time interesting player is, of course, McEnroe.

posted by jason streed at 10:09 AM on August 25, 2003

I think it's unfortunate that the modern sprots fan needs so much media involvement and hype to help dictate their degree of fandom. Sampras is neither as boring as most media wags say he is, nor is he a boring tennis player. He is perhaps the best that ever competed and it passed most people by. Tennis fans were priviledged to watch him play. He should be put in the same pantheon of American sports greats as Thorpe, Michael Johnson, Carl (you took sterioids you fucker!) Lewis, Ali and the rest of those greats who competed on a truly world stage.

posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 11:27 AM on August 25, 2003

I didn't like watching Sampras play because it seemed like he won every match, 6-4, 7-6, 6-4. On serve throughout the match with one break. Very predictable and boring, but man he could play, and he even came to the net on occasion, unlike Agassi or Roddick.

posted by emoeby at 12:13 PM on August 25, 2003

Of course he won $62 million in prize money (not including appearance fees and endorsements), married a hot actress and retired at 30-something, so I can't quite bring myself to pity him for some reason. Those lousy modern 'sprots' fans...

posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 01:22 PM on August 25, 2003

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