Sampras vs Agassi, US Open 2001: Four Tiebreaks and Not One Break of Serve

Arthur Ashe Stadium, a night session, September 2001. Pete Sampras was 30, seeded tenth. Andre Agassi was 31 and seeded second. They had played each other thirty-one times, and Sampras led 17–14.

The score was 6–7(7–9), 7–6(7–2), 7–6(7–2), 7–6(7–5). In three and a half hours neither man lost his serve, not once in twenty-four service games.

The two stringbeds

Sampras's set-up is one of the best documented in tennis, but what Tennisnerd publishes is his career set-up, not a stringer's sheet from that September. The pattern is still worth looking at: an 85-square-inch head, close to 400 grams, natural gut at 70 pounds. That is a frame built to hit through the ball and a very tight stringbed that gives the player control and little help. It suits a man whose plan is to end the point in one or two shots.

No source we read gives Agassi's frame, string or tension for this match, so the table leaves his side empty.

Set by set

The independent match chart on voodemar.com shows how close it was. Sampras won 176 points to Agassi's 162. No set was separated by more than five points.

First set, Agassi 7–6(9–7). Points 45–48 on the chart — Sampras won more of them and lost the set. Agassi came back from 3–6 down in the tiebreak to win it.

Second set, Sampras 7–6(7–2). Points 41–39. Sampras hit a run of aces in the second set, and the tiebreak was the first one-sided passage of the night.

Third set, Sampras 7–6(7–2). Points 43–38. The tiebreak went the same way as the second. At one stage of the match, the chart records, Sampras led 40–0 on Agassi's serve and did not convert any of the three break points.

Fourth set, Sampras 7–6(7–5). Points 44–40. Before the set began, the crowd gave both players a standing ovation, as Sportskeeda's account records. The fourth tiebreak was the only close one Sampras won, and it ended the match.

The decisive passage

There was no single turning point. Agassi saved six break points and Sampras saved three, and every set came down to a tiebreak. In a match like that the decisive passages are the tiebreaks themselves, and Sampras won the last three by a combined 21–9. His serve is the easiest explanation: 25 aces to 18 on the chart, and 40 per cent of his serve points won outright behind the serve against Agassi's 26.

"Two great players playing great at the same time. That doesn't often happen." — Pete Sampras

What is not on this page

The chart we used does not record double faults, first-serve percentages or winner counts, and we did not find an official match statistics sheet. The table above therefore stops at aces, points and break points. The sources also differ slightly on the length of the match — 3 hours 32 minutes on the chart, 3 hours 33 in Tennishead — and on the crowd, around 23,000 in Tennishead and 20,000 in Sportskeeda.

What it changed

Sampras had beaten Pat Rafter in the round before. He went on to beat Marat Safin, then lost the final to Lleyton Hewitt 7–6(7–4), 6–1, 6–1. A year later he beat Agassi in the 2002 US Open final and never played another match. Across the rivalry he finished 20–14, and he won all four of their meetings at the US Open.

For equipment, the match is a late example of a type that was disappearing: a small, heavy frame strung tight with gut, used to serve and volley at the highest level against Agassi. Twenty-four holds out of twenty-four is what that set-up looked like at its best.