# Sampras vs Agassi: Who Is Better? 14 Majors to 8, 14 Lists > Pete Sampras won 14 majors and led Andre Agassi 20–14; Agassi won all four Slams. The Sampras vs Agassi rivalry across 14 rankings. *By YPB Team · Published October 20, 2026 · https://youpick.best/articles/sampras-vs-agassi-ranked* ---

Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi serving, side by side — Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, 14 rankings where they meet. Photos: Shinya Suzuki, CC BY 2.0 (Sampras); Srinayan Puppala, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Agassi), via Wikimedia Commons.

Pete Sampras played his last professional match in the 2002 US Open final, and Andre Agassi was the opponent. Sampras won it 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 with his 14th major title.¹ Agassi kept going for four more years and said goodbye at the same tournament on 3 September 2006, losing in the third round to Benjamin Becker.² This September was the twentieth anniversary of that farewell, and the argument over which American was better has not moved an inch. Sampras has the bigger numbers. Agassi has the wider set of trophies, the longer career and the better story. Between them they appear on fourteen rankings here, usually together. > Sampras owned the scoreboard between them, but almost every list that measures something other than titles (the return, the clay, the book, the second act) bends toward Agassi. ## Sampras vs Federer: the 2001 Wimbledon handover The broadest ballot in the men's game names the greatest male player of all time. Sampras and Agassi both sit on a ballot of 28 names, next to Rod Laver, Björn Borg, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Roger Federer is the name that links Sampras to the modern era. In the fourth round of Wimbledon 2001, a 19-year-old Federer beat Sampras 7-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7, 7-5 and ended his run of 31 straight wins at the All England Club.³ It was their only official match. Agassi never had a moment like that against the next generation. His case on this list rests on range: eight majors across all four Slams. The Sampras counter-argument is depth at the top. His 14 majors were the men's record when he retired, and the 20 of Federer were still years away.

Roger Federer vs Pete Sampras in the ranking of the greatest male tennis players of all time — Federer against the man he dethroned at Wimbledon. Play it →

## Grand Slam finals: Sampras 4, Agassi 1 The greatest men's Grand Slam champions ranking holds 34 names. On this one the head-to-head speaks loudest. Sampras and Agassi met in five major finals. Sampras won the 1990 US Open, the 1995 US Open, Wimbledon 1999 and the 2002 US Open; Agassi took the 1995 Australian Open.⁴ The first of those finals made Sampras the youngest male US Open champion, at 19.⁵ Agassi's titles are spread differently. He won the Australian Open four times, plus Roland Garros, Wimbledon and two US Opens.⁶ No fact helps Agassi more, and Sampras could never match it.

Andre Agassi vs Pete Sampras in the ranking of the greatest men's Grand Slam champions — Four of five major finals went to Sampras. Play it →

## The most iconic tennis players: Agassi's home ground Iconic is a different measure from great. The ranking of the 20 most iconic players weighs image, influence and how far a player travelled outside the sport, and both Americans are on it alongside Serena Williams, Björn Borg and John McEnroe. Agassi is the obvious fit. He changed his look, his ranking and his public image more than once, and he still finished with an Olympic gold medal from Atlanta 1996 on top of the career Grand Slam. Sampras built his reputation the other way, through results rather than personality. Seven Wimbledon titles are hard to argue with, and here his supporters point out that consistency at the top of the sport is its own kind of image.

Andre Agassi vs Pete Sampras in the ranking of the most iconic tennis players of all time — The showman and the champion, on a list about image. Play it →

## Best American men: Sampras, Agassi, Connors, McEnroe Fifteen American men are on this list, from Bill Tilden and Don Budge to Taylor Fritz. Sampras and Agassi are the two whose careers overlapped exactly. Sampras finished six straight years as world No. 1, from 1993 to 1998, a streak the Hall of Fame in Newport still lists as a record.¹ Agassi won Roland Garros in 1999 to complete a set of all four majors, the first man to do it since Rod Laver in 1969.⁷ No other American man has won all four. Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe make the list harder than a two-man race. Connors has the longevity, McEnroe the 1984 season.

Pete Sampras vs Andre Agassi in the ranking of the greatest American male tennis players — Six year-end No. 1s against the only American career Grand Slam. Play it →

## Sampras vs Agassi at No. 1: 286 weeks against 101 The ranking of the most dominant world No. 1s is built on time at the top, and here the gap is wide. Sampras spent 286 weeks at No. 1, a record when he retired.⁴ Agassi spent 101. Agassi's weeks came in stranger places. He first took the top spot from Sampras on 10 April 1995, finished 1999 at No. 1, and returned there on 28 April 2003, a day short of his 33rd birthday, the oldest No. 1 in the sport at that point.⁸ Djokovic and Federer are on this list too, with longer reigns than either American.

Andre Agassi vs Pete Sampras in the ranking of the most dominant world No. 1s in men's tennis — The longest reign against the oldest one. Play it →

## Sampras–Agassi vs Federer–Nadal: the greatest rivalry in men's tennis Here the two Americans are a single option. The ranking asks which rivalry is the greatest in men's tennis, and "Sampras vs Agassi" competes with Borg vs McEnroe, Federer vs Nadal and Djokovic vs Nadal. They played 34 times between 1989 and 2002, and Sampras won 20.⁴ Nine of those meetings came at majors. The best of them had no break of serve at all. In the 2001 US Open quarterfinal Sampras won 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 in 3 hours 32 minutes, and neither man lost a service game.⁹ Federer and Nadal have the bigger stage and more major finals between them. The case for Sampras and Agassi is contrast: the best server of the decade against its best returner.

Sampras vs Agassi against Federer vs Nadal in the ranking of the greatest rivalries in men's tennis — One rivalry, one option, against the Federer–Nadal era. Play it →

## Hard courts: seven majors for Sampras, six for Agassi On hard courts the gap almost closes. Sampras won five US Opens and two Australian Opens; Agassi won four Australian Opens and two US Opens. Seven against six is the closest these two get on any surface. Sampras was the stronger player in New York, Agassi in Melbourne, where his last major came in 2003. The ranking of the 23 greatest hard-court players also holds Djokovic, Federer and Connors. For Agassi the case is that hard courts suited his game from the baseline, while Sampras won there mostly through the serve.

Andre Agassi vs Pete Sampras in the ranking of the greatest hard-court tennis players — New York against Melbourne. Play it →

## Five-set tennis: Agassi's Roland Garros comeback The five-set ranking is about endurance and nerve in the longest format. Both Sampras and Agassi appear, alongside Djokovic, Nadal and Federer. Agassi's best evidence is the 1999 Roland Garros final. Andrei Medvedev took the opening sets 6-1, 6-2, and Agassi then won three in a row.⁷ Sampras's five-set record carries a famous loss: the 2001 Wimbledon match against Federer went the full distance and ended his streak there.

Pete Sampras vs Andre Agassi in the ranking of the best five-set players in men's tennis — Two sets down in Paris, then three in a row. Play it →

## Agassi vs Serena Williams: no calendar Grand Slam This list mixes men and women. It ranks the 40 best players who never won all four majors in a single season, and both Agassi and Sampras qualify. Serena Williams is the name that frames it. Twice she owned all four major titles simultaneously, yet never within one calendar year. Rod Laver, in 1969, was the last man to manage it. Agassi came closer to the full set than Sampras did, winning each major at least once. Sampras never reached a Roland Garros final, so for him the calendar Slam was never a real possibility.

Andre Agassi vs Serena Williams in the ranking of the greatest players never to win a calendar-year Grand Slam — All four majors, never in one year. Play it →

## Davis Cup: Agassi 30–6, Sampras 19–9 The Davis Cup ranking holds 48 players, from John McEnroe and Björn Borg to Nicola Pietrangeli. Sampras and Agassi played for the United States in the same years and won titles together. Agassi's record in the competition was 30 wins and 6 losses.⁶ Sampras played fewer ties and lost more of them, 19–9 overall. He has the bigger single weekend: the 1995 final against Russia in Moscow, on clay, which the United States won 3-2.¹

Pete Sampras vs Andre Agassi in the ranking of the greatest Davis Cup players — Teammates for once, with a better record on one side. Play it →

## Agassi vs Jimmy Connors: the best returners Sampras does not appear here, and the reason is the whole rivalry in miniature. The ranking of the best returners in men's tennis puts Agassi alongside Djokovic and Jimmy Connors, the two players most often compared with him for taking the ball early. Agassi stood on the baseline and attacked first serves that other players were happy to block back. The 2001 US Open quarterfinal is the limit of that skill. The best returner of his generation faced Sampras for 3 hours 32 minutes and did not break him once.

Andre Agassi vs Jimmy Connors in the ranking of the best returners in men's tennis — The list Sampras was built to beat. Play it →

## Sampras vs Boris Becker: never won the French Open This is the list Agassi left in 1999. It ranks the best men who never won Roland Garros, and Sampras shares it with Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and John McEnroe. Sampras's best run in Paris was in 1996, when Yevgeny Kafelnikov beat him in the semifinal.¹⁰ The clay gap is the most common case against him in the comparison with Agassi. A man with 14 majors had none on the slowest surface, while his rival won there from two sets down.

Boris Becker vs Pete Sampras in the ranking of the greatest men never to win the French Open — The one major missing from 14. Play it →

## Open vs Undisputed Truth: the sports autobiography Both men wrote books. Only Agassi's book is among the 14 sports autobiographies ranked here. Agassi's *Open* starts with the admission that he hated tennis, and it shares this list with Mike Tyson's *Undisputed Truth*, *Ball Four* and *The Greatest: My Own Story*. Sampras's memoir, *A Champion's Mind*, written with Peter Bodo, came out from Crown and covers his matches with Agassi and the 2002 final that ended his career.⁵ It is not on this list. On the page, as on the clay, Agassi has the edge.

Andre Agassi's Open vs Mike Tyson's Undisputed Truth in the ranking of the best sports autobiographies — Agassi's book against Tyson's. Play it →

## Agassi vs Borg: the biggest what-if in men's tennis The last ranking is the unflattering one. It lists the biggest what-ifs in men's tennis, and Agassi is on it with Björn Borg, who walked away at 26. On 10 November 1997 Agassi was ranked No. 141 in the world.¹¹ He went back to Challenger events, returned to the top 10 a year later and finished 1999 as No. 1. The question this list asks is what he would have won without those lost seasons in the middle of the Sampras era. Sampras has no place here: his career ran in a straight line from 1990 to 2002.

Bjorn Borg vs Andre Agassi in the ranking of the biggest what-ifs in men's tennis — No. 141 in 1997, No. 1 two years later. Play it →

## Who is better, Sampras or Agassi? If the measure is titles, weeks at No. 1 and the matches they played against each other, Sampras is ahead on every count. If it is the return, the clay, Davis Cup, the book and the comeback, the lists lean the other way. Each ranking above settles one version of that question [one pair of names after another](/articles/how-head-to-head-voting-works). The 2002 US Open final was the last word they had on court. Pick a side on any of the fourteen, or build a ranking for a rivalry of your own. ## More rankings, more angles - [Where Does Andre Agassi Rank All Time? 8 Majors, 12 Lists](/articles/andre-agassi-ranked-many-ways) — the Las Vegas career on its own - [Borg vs McEnroe Rivalry: Tied 7–7, Ranked on 14 Lists](/articles/borg-vs-mcenroe-ranked) — the rivalry before this one - [Sinner vs Alcaraz Rivalry: Two No. 1s, 14 Lists](/articles/sinner-vs-alcaraz-ranked) — the current generation's pair

Sources

International Tennis Hall of Fame — Pete Sampras: 14 major titles by event, six straight year-end No. 1 finishes (1993–1998), Davis Cup record and the 1995 final against Russia, the 2002 US Open final as his last match: tennisfame.com (checked 2026-10-20)
Tennis Majors — 3 September 2006, Agassi's final professional match: tennismajors.com (checked 2026-10-20)
ESPN — Federer beats Sampras in the fourth round of Wimbledon 2001, ending a 31-match streak: espn.com (checked 2026-10-20)
Wikipedia — Agassi–Sampras rivalry: 34 meetings, the 20–14 head-to-head, the five major finals, 286 weeks at No. 1: wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-20)
Penguin Random House — A Champion's Mind by Pete Sampras and Peter Bodo (Crown); youngest male US Open champion at 19: penguinrandomhouse.com (checked 2026-10-20)
International Tennis Hall of Fame — Andre Agassi: eight major titles by event and year, 1996 Olympic gold, Davis Cup record 30–6: tennisfame.com (checked 2026-10-20)
Tennis Majors — 6 June 1999, Agassi beats Medvedev from two sets down for the first career Grand Slam since Laver: tennismajors.com (checked 2026-10-20)
ATP Tour — Agassi's No. 1 profile: first No. 1 on 10 April 1995, year-end No. 1 in 1999, return to No. 1 on 28 April 2003: atptour.com (checked 2026-10-20)
ESPN — 2001 US Open quarterfinal, Sampras d. Agassi in four tiebreak sets with no breaks of serve: espn.com (checked 2026-10-20)
Wikipedia — 1996 French Open men's singles: Kafelnikov beats Sampras in the semifinal, his best Roland Garros result: wikipedia.org (checked 2026-10-20)
Tennis Majors — 10 November 1997, Agassi falls to No. 141: tennismajors.com (checked 2026-10-20)