Pete Sampras

Pete Sampras married American actress and former Miss Teen USA, Bridgette Wilson on September 30, 2000 and together they have two sons, Christian Charles and Ryan Nikolaos.

Pete Sampras was born on August 12, 1971 in Potomac, Maryland. His parents, Sammy and Georgia Sampras are of Greek heritage.

The Sampras family moved to Palos Verdes, California in 1978 and Pete began playing tennis on a regular basis. He met his idol Rod Laver when he was 11 and got the opportunity to play with him.

Peter Fischer, an amateur coach and pediatrician, saw him playing at the John Kramer Club and became his coach till 1989. While training, Peter made Pete play the single handed backhand instead of the double handed backhand.

Pete Sampras entered the professional tennis world in 1988 and within a year brought his world ranking from No. 893 to an admirable No. 97. He improved his ranking slightly and ended the next year at No. 81.

He won his first professional singles title at the Ebel US Pro Indoor, in Philadelphia in 1990 after defeating Andre Agassi, Mayotte and Andres Gomez and ended the year at world ranking No. 5.

At the US Open in 1990, he defeated Thomas Muster, Ivan Lendl, McEnroe and Agassi to win the tournament and became the youngest-ever male singles champion, at the age of 19 years and 28 days. He expanded on these accomplishments by winning the Grand Slam Cup too.

He defeated Jim Courier to win the 1991 Tennis Masters Cup but lost to the same opponent in the quarterfinals of the US Open, where he was the defending champion.

In 1993 he reached No. 1 on the world rankings for the first time without having much to show for this accomplishment. However, soon enough he won his first Wimbledon title by defeating Courier and his second US Open by trouncing Cedric Pioline.

During his tennis career, he won 14 Grand Slam Singles titles. These include: 2 Australian Open (1994, 1997), 7 Wimbledon (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000), and 5 U.S Open (1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2002)

Pete Samparas was the ATP Player of the Year and the ITF World Champion for six consecutive years from 1993 to 1998.

At ATP’s 25th anniversary, in 1997, he was ranked as the No. 1 player in the past 25 years.

He was the first tennis player to be adjudged as the ‘Sportsman of the Year’ by the US Olympic Committee in 1997. ‘GQ’ magazine awarded him with the ‘Man of the Year’ award in the Individual Athlete category in 2000.