Agassi Calls Federer The Greatest Ever

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 26th September 2013

Agassi Calls Federer The Greatest Ever

epa03391706 US tennis legend Andre Agassi waves after a ceremony inducting him into the US Open Court of Champions before the start of the women's final between Serena Williams of the US and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus on the fourteenth day of the 2012 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 09 September 2012. The US Open has been extended a day for the fifth straight year due to weather and will end on Monday 10 September 2012. EPA/JUSTIN LANE |

Andre Agassi’s long-time wariness of former rival Pete Sampras appears to be alive a nearly decade after the end of both men’s careers, with Agassi tipping Roger Federer as the best to ever play the game and Sampras not even a close second.

“I think Federer is a class above, quite frankly. I mean, you’re talking about a guy who dominated pretty much on every surface, minus one guy on clay,” Agassi told the Huffpost Live website. “He’s won everything. Pete was obviously off the hook on faster courts but during the clay season players wanted to play against him. It was opportunity to get a win over him, it was an opportunity to beat him. You didn’t have that luxury with Fed. He was really the world class, all-around player.”

The flamboyant Agassi and old-before-his-time Sampras never really got along off court during their career peaks at the top of the sport in the 1990 and early into this century. Agassi, who now devoted time to his educational charity work doesn’t seem to have mellowed at all in confrontation with Sampras, whose current life seems to consist of trying to fight off millionaire’s boredom in Los Angeles.

Statistic show that Sampras never had a chance on clay while Federer won the French Open, one of ten career clay titles.

Meanwhile, Agassi rates Rafael Nadal as a close second behind Federer in the all-time great stakes due to the Spaniard’s eight Roland Garros trophies and 13 grand slam titles overall.

“I personally think that Nadal has an argument to be made for the best of all time. If Nadal is sitting at a table with Federer and Federer says, ‘I’m the best ever,’ my first question would be ‘well then how come you didn’t beat me because I beat you twice as many times? And, hey, by the way, you know I won everything including gold medal and Davis Cup,'” said Agassi. Nadal leads Federer 21-10 in their career series.

Topics: Andre Agassi, Davis Cup, French Open, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Tennis, Tennis News