While Roger goes after Pete's trophies, perhaps he'd like his toughness as well?

(Photo by ATP Tennis via Getty Images)

It was January 1995 when in the sweltering heat of Australian summer, Pete Sampras faced a two-set deficit to then-rival Jim Courier, and the news that his long-time coach and friend had a terminal illness. Sampras broke down and cried for his mentor in a rare display of emotion before reaching up and firing an ace.

Through blistered feet and unstoppable tears, Pete came back to take the match, eventually winning it an hour past midnight.

That instance when the King of Swing turned around a fast-growing tide in his favor represents the greatest moment in men’s tennis that I have ever been witness to.

Not just because there is something magical about conjuring up a perfect shot during the most dire of situations; not simply because this was a rivalry to behold between great friends turned sporting rivals; but because it is in such moments that a sportsman truly transcends the ordinary, and defies the devastation caused by human emotion with as much poise as he does a relentless opponent.

Almost a decade later, even as I began to accept and like and love and be awed by Roger Federer, I wondered if the Swissman would ever display the mental strength and grit that Sampras embodied, time and again, at the biggest moments, on the grandest stages, against the fiercest opponents, witness to the most hostile crowds.

Happily, I did not have to find out for the first four years of Roger’s stellar career.

The man who took the baton from the great Pistol Pete was not only flawless in his exquisite strokes, his mental acumen, and his all-court genius, but also above and beyond all his challengers—and I had, along with his million adoring fans, accepted that fact.

Rarely was Roger pushed to a limit where he would have had to display something greater than what he already did so well. If an opponent was being difficult, the virtuoso would merely dip into his arsenal and produce a shot of such genius that a mere mortal would struggle to put it in words:  “What was that—a squash shot?” one would stutter. “A baseline half-volley?” another would interject.

And then, four years ago, something changed.

Rafael Nadal came on the scene with his high bounce and left-handed spin directed at Federer’s only glitch, his weaker backhand. But very soon it wasn’t about Rafa’s leftiness or spin, it wasn’t about Roger’s backhand.

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