Tennis · 2001 · New York, USA
The Match Without a Break
Four sets, four tie-breaks, and not a single break of serve: Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi play a US Open quarter-final decided entirely on the margins.
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 that comes down to one statistic. Across four full sets, neither player broke the other's serve even once. Every set went to a tie-break.
Sampras won 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6, on serving and the small margins of tie-break tennis rather than on prolonged rallies or any momentum swing across games. Both men were playing at the top of their games deep into their careers, and the quality of the serving is what the people who were there still talk about.
Neither gave the other a single break point to work with across the entire encounter. It gets named among the greatest matches played at the US Open for exactly that, rather than for any drama in it.
Watch the Moment
