Pete Sampras

Arguably one of the world's best tennis players ever, Pete Sampras found an old tennis racket in his family's basement at age 3 and was immediately hooked on the sport. At age 16, he turned pro, and at age 19 was the youngest men's player ever to win the U.S. Open Tennis Championship. He went on to win 64 tournaments and 14 majors, including 7 Wimbledon titles, 5 U.S. Open titles and 2 Australian Open titles. He won over $43 million in prize money. He was ranked number 1 in the world for 286 weeks, 102 weeks consecutively, and was a credit to the professional ranks of tennis for over 15 years.

Over his professional career, his singles record was an amazing 762 wins and 222 losses. His record in Grand Slam events was equally impressive at 203 wins and 38 losses. His last professional ATP tournament was in 2002. While he was only ranked as the 17th seed in the tournament, he won, going out as the champion he always was. Sampras also competed in the Davis Cup Series 8 times and had an impressive record of 19 wins and 9 losses, while his team won the cup in 1992 and 1995. The only title to elude him was The French Open at Roland Garros.

In 2006 Sampras announced that he would play in World Team Tennis events and in 2007, he played Roger Federer in an exhibition match in Seoul, Korea and also in Kuala, Lumpur. He continues to compete and this year he has already won 2 Outback Champions Series titles.