Pete Sampras

Tennis Player

One of the all-time great tennis players, Pete Sampras spent 286 consecutive weeks in the 1990s as the no. 1 ranked player in the world. Nicknamed "Pistol Pete" because of his fast and true serve, Sampras joined professional tennis in 1988. In 1990, when he was 19 years old, he beat Andre Agassi to become the youngest man ever to win the U.S. Open, and from 1993-1998 he ended each year -- six consecutive -- as the top-ranked player in the world. During his career he won a total of 64 singles titles, with 14 Grand Slam titles. Sampras won Wimbledon seven times, the U.S. Open five times and the Australian Open twice; he never won the French Open. Sampras dominated men's tennis in the last half of the 1990s, and had a long rivalry with Agassi (who he beat in 2002 for his final U.S. Open title), but his low-key demeanor and sportsmanlike behavior kept him from becoming a major celebrity beyond the court. He retired in 2003.

Extra credit: His older sister, Stella Sampras Webster, is the head coach of women's tennis at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).