Richard Krajicek stunned the tennis world in 1996 when he claimed his one and only Grand Slam title by going all the way at Wimbledon.
The Dutch performer defeated Mal Washington from the United States to get his hands on the biggest prize of his career having knocked out Pete Sampras on the way.
During that tournament, he didn’t just beat Sampras, he obliterated him! A tough-looking quarter-final was comfortably negotiated with Krajicek winning 7-5, 7-6, 6-4 to reach the semi-final at the All-England club.
It was Krajicek’s only major final. He never went beyond the semi-finals at either the Australian Open and French Open, whilst three runs to the quarter-final was his best at the US Open.
At this year’s Australian Open, Jannik Sinner was the man of the moment, beating Alexander Zverev in the final and in the aftermath Krajicek made a big claim about the Italian.
Richard Krajicek makes claim about Jannik Sinner
Having beat Sampras at the tournament where he was considered the absolute best in his prime, Krajicek knows a lot about playing the American performer.
Intriguingly he’s claimed that he’d rather come up against Sampras than Sinner given that he knew a real weakness in the seven-time Wimbledon champion’s game.
He told Teesside Live: “Today beating Sinner is harder than beating Sampras back when he played, Sampras was an incredible player, that is unquestionable, but I knew that if I could attack him on the backhand side, I would have a small chance to overcome him.
“Right now, everyone knows how to do everything on the court, all players move very well. When I look at them, I think: if I were playing now, how could I defeat them? Currently, I consider that Sinner has no weaknesses.”
Sinner can win more majors than Sampras given current dominance
In truth, Sinner didn’t have to work particularly hard to win the Australian Open this year. He lost just one set in seven matches and even in the final he barely needed to reach second gear.
His lead at the top of the ATP World Rankings isn’t being bettered any time soon and he looks set to go through the whole year in that position on current form.
Sampras was considered the best of all time before Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic came along to show him who was going to take over.
He won 14 Grand Slam titles and given that Sinner now has three to his name it does feel like a foregone conclusion that he will eclipse Sampras at some point in his career.
Sinner is only 23 and that’s pretty scary. The rest of the field have to come up with something quickly otherwise professional tennis on the male side of the sport could start to become very predictable.
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