30 Years Ago: Pete Sampras rises to No. 1 on the ATP rankings for the first time

The date was April 12th, 1993—a Monday. “Cheers” and the original “Saved By The Bell” were wrapping up their final seasons, “Informer” by Snow was the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, “Indecent Proposal” was the No. 1 movie at the U.S. box office, and a 21-year-old Pete Sampras was spending his first day as the No. 1 men’s tennis player in the world.

Sampras had actually secured his rise to No. 1 on the ATP rankings the Friday before—with a hard-fought 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 quarterfinal victory over fellow American David Wheaton in Tokyo, he assured himself of ascending to the top spot the following Monday.

“I heard that if I won today’s match I would be No. 1,” he told the New York Times after that win. “I was thinking about it a couple of times during the match.”

He only gained momentum from there, not dropping a set the rest of the tournament, defeating Australia’s Wally Masur in the semifinals, 6-4, 6-2, then blitzing Brad Gilbert in the best-of-five final, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.

“He played just like the world’s No. 1 player. I couldn’t read his serve,” Gilbert said afterwards, before making a major prediction: “He is the top candidate to win Wimbledon and the US Open this season.”

The 12-month period that led Sampras to the top spot was impressive—he reached the quarterfinals or better at 19 of the 23 tournaments he played, won 83 of 101 matches and picked up seven ATP titles at Kitzbuhel, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Lyon in 1992 and Sydney, Miami and, as mentioned above, Tokyo in 1993.

He was also the only man to reach the quarterfinals or better at all four of the Grand Slams in that 12-month period, reaching the quarterfinals of 1992 Roland Garros, the semifinals of 1992 Wimbledon, the final of the 1992 US Open and the semifinals of the 1993 Australian Open.

But there was one major thing missing from his ascent to No. 1. He already had a Grand Slam title to his name, but it had come a few years earlier at the 1990 US Open.

“I prepared to be No. 1 and when I got there, there was satisfaction, but it wasn’t until after I won Wimbledon a few months later that I felt I deserved it,” Sampras told ATPTour.com during a look back at his career. “But certainly, after getting to No. 1, [my coach] Tim [Gullikson] and I felt that we could now push and work harder in order to win another major.”

To say he followed through on that goal would be an understatement.

After a quarterfinal showing in his first major as No. 1 at the 1993 French Open, Sampras won Wimbledon and the US Open later that year—just like Gilbert had predicted—and he then made it three majors in a row by winning the 1994 Australian Open.

After rising to No. 1, Sampras would end up winning four of the next six majors, six of the next 11 and nine of the next 18.

Sampras would win his 13th career Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2000, breaking Roy Emerson’s all-time men’s record of 12 that had stood since the 1960s, and he even won a 14th career major at the 2002 US Open. He would also amass 286 career weeks at No. 1, surpassing Ivan Lendl’s previous record of 270.

While both of those records have since been surpassed—the Grand Slam record by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, and the weeks at No. 1 record by Federer and Djokovic—there is one major record not even any of the Big 3 have matched, let alone passed. After rising to No. 1 in April of 1993, Sampras finished six consecutive years as the No. 1 player, from 1993 all the way to 1998.