Tennis · 2001 · New York, USA
The Match Without a Break
In a US Open quarter-final decided entirely by tie-breaks, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi go through the whole match without either man losing a single service game.
Sampras def. Agassi, 4 tie-break sets
Result
0 (either player)
Service breaks
4 of 4
Sets decided by tie-break
Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, two of the defining rivals of their generation, met in the 2001 US Open quarter-final in a match remarkable for a single statistic: across four full sets, neither player broke the other's serve even once, every set decided by a tie-break.
Sampras won 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6, a result built entirely on serving and the small margins of tie-break tennis rather than any prolonged rallies or momentum swings across games. The quality and consistency of serving from both men, playing at the top of their games deep into their careers, made it one of the most technically admired matches either had played.
The match is frequently cited among the greatest ever played at the US Open, not for dramatic momentum swings but for the sheer, sustained quality of serving from two legends of the sport meeting relatively late in both their careers, neither giving the other a single break point to work with across the entire encounter.
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