The American was so dominant at the grass court major, with Sampras only losing one match at Wimbledon<\/a> between 1993 and 2000.<\/p>\n Sampras<\/a> was unable to add to his Wimbledon<\/a> tally in 2001, before being stunned in his final appearance a year later.<\/p>\n It was not known at the time that 2002 would be the final year that Sampras would play at Wimbledon, but he made a positive start to his bid for an eighth title.<\/p>\n Sampras beat British player Martin Lee in a straight sets first round win, which set up a second round clash with Swiss player George Bastl.<\/p>\n This appeared to be a good draw for Sampras, as Bastl was the world number 145 and had only ever won two Grand Slam matches in his career up to that point.<\/p>\n Bastl had also lost in the qualifying draw, but was granted entry into the main draw as a lucky loser following a withdrawal.<\/p>\n Despite the odds appearing to be in Sampras\u2019 favour, it was Bastl who took the early lead after winning the first two sets.<\/p>\n Normality seemed to be resuming again when Sampras levelled the match up at two sets all, but Bastl was not finished there.<\/p>\n Bastl would show great fight to beat Sampras, 6-3 6-2 4-6 3-6 6-4, in one of the biggest shocks in Wimbledon history.<\/p>\n This would be a short-lived success story for Bastl, who would lose his next match to eventual finalist David Nalbandian in straight sets and never won another Grand Slam main draw match in his career.<\/p>\n Why was Pete Sampras \u2018not happy\u2019 with Wimbledon after his final match?<\/p>\n This was not the only surprising thing about Sampras\u2019 final ever match at Wimbledon, with the court it was scheduled on also raising some eyebrows.<\/p>\n Sampras and Bastl were played on Court 2, which was informally called the \u2018Graveyard of Champions\u2019 as it had previously played host to some other big upsets where Arthur Ashe, John McEnroe<\/a>, Jimmy Connors<\/a> and Lleyton Hewitt<\/a> had fallen victim.<\/p>\n The latest name on that list was Sampras, and he admitted in his post-match press conference<\/a> that he was not happy about the scheduling.<\/p>\n Despite Sampras feeling uncomfortable, he did not want to take anything away from his opponent.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah. Wasn\u2019t happy about it,\u201d said Sampras. \u201cYou know, much rather have been on one of the Show Courts. But anything can happen out there on any court. <\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019d much rather have played him somewhere where I\u2019m a little bit more comfortable. But it\u2019s still a tennis court, still the same dimensions. And, you know, I give him credit. But I felt like I was going to come through today.\u201d<\/p>\n Sampras then answered a follow-up question about what makes Court 2 different to the show courts he is used to playing on. <\/p>\n \u201cJust a different atmosphere,\u201d he added. \u201cPlaying on the Stadium or Court 1, so used to playing out there. Court 2 is a very small court and, you know, just not quite as comfortable. But with that being said, it\u2019s still a match I should come through and win, no matter what court I play on.\u201d<\/p>\n Although it was unknown at the time, this would be Sampras\u2019 final ever appearance at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n However, Sampras was not done there and he would bounce straight back at the next Grand Slam tournament.<\/p>\n At the US Open<\/a>, Sampras would win his 14th Grand Slam title<\/a>, before announcing his retirement from tennis nearly a year later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pete Sampras is one of the most successful players in Wimbledon history. Sampras won Wimbledon seven times in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6733,49,48,79551,20306,82,593,614],"class_list":{"0":"post-149817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-george-bastl","12":"tag-pete-sampras","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennis","15":"tag-wimbledon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Pete](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-860682-1-1024x601.jpg\")
Photo by Al Bello\/Getty ImagesGeorge Bastl: The lucky loser who beat Pete Sampras at his last Wimbledon<\/p>\n![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-860740-1024x840.jpg\")
Photo by Al Bello\/Getty Images<\/p>\n