Steffi Graf
Pete Sampras
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Steffi Graf leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Steffi Graf at #5 and Pete Sampras at #11.
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The case for Steffi Graf
Graf did the one thing no other player in tennis history has done: the 1988 Golden Slam, winning all four majors plus Olympic singles gold in Seoul in a single season, at age 19. Her 22 Grand Slam titles came with a distribution no one else can claim — she is the only player, man or woman, to win each of the four majors at least four times, proof of true all-surface supremacy in an era when the surfaces played far more differently than today. Her 377 total weeks at No.1 remain the all-time record for either tour, and she finished year-end No.1 eight times. The forehand — 'Fraulein Forehand' — and a knifing slice backhand made her the bridge between the classic and power eras. The honest asterisk: Monica Seles had won 8 of 9 majors entered and led their rivalry when she was stabbed by a Graf fan in April 1993, and Graf won 10 of her 22 majors afterward. Even discounting for that, the Golden Slam and the surface spread put her peak among the three or four highest ever reached.
The case for Pete Sampras
Sampras retired with what was then the men's all-time record of 14 majors, and the record most likely to survive the Big Three era is still his: six consecutive year-end No.1 finishes, 1993 through 1998, a run of sustained supremacy no man has matched before or since. His seven Wimbledon titles in eight years (1993-2000) were built on the most complete serving game the sport had seen — not the fastest serve, but the best-disguised, backed by a second serve routinely rated the greatest ever and an attacking all-court game that made him nearly unbreakable on fast surfaces. He spent 286 weeks at No.1, won 64 titles, and ended his career with a perfect exit: winning the 2002 US Open, beating Agassi in the final, and never playing another match. The gap in his record — no Roland Garros, with just one semifinal there — is why he sits near the bottom of this list rather than the middle; on everything but clay, he was the standard his successors chased.