"All my unresolved issues with clay-court tennis began to play on my mind" - When Pete Sampras lost to 97th-ranked player at French Open 1998

With 64 ATP tour titles, Pete Sampras holds the joint ninth position in the list of the highest number of singles titles in the Open Era among men.

Also known as 'Pistol Pete', the 51-year-old held the record for the most Grand Slam singles titles, 14, before Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic came along. However, the former American player always struggled on clay, where he could only win three titles during his 14-year-long glorious career.

The French Open was the only Major that he couldn't win. His best result in Paris was reaching the semifinals in 1996. In his autobiography, A Champion's Mind, the icon reflected on his 1998 Roland Garros second-round loss to Ramon Delgado, who was the 97th-ranked player at the time.

Delgado beat Sampras 7-6(6), 6-3, 6-4. The American stated that it wasn't the loss, but the manner in which he lost that bothered him.

"During the match, all of my unresolved issues with clay-court tennis began to play on my mind," Pete Sampras wrote. "I lost a first-set tiebreaker and then went down, winning just seven games over the next two sets. It wasn’t just that I lost, it was how I lost. I looked like a fish out of water, flopping around in the dust on the floor of the Philippe Chatrier Court Centrale."

Rating it among the worst performances of his career, the former World No. 1 felt embarrassed losing to a low-ranked player.

"I was playing a guy who was barely inside the top hundred, and who would eventually fall off the ATP computer-ranking chart without ever winning a singles title," he added. "Yet I was the one who played with slumped shoulders and a lack of fire in my belly. It was one of the most negative performances of my career."

Sampras also stated that he realized during the match that his time at Roland Garros was running out.

"I had survived and overcome difficult moments before, but this time, I really recognized that my time in Paris was running out. I had plenty of good results to call upon from the past to try to change my own mind, but that didn’t work. I could neither convince nor fool myself. That Delgado match was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as Roland Garros went for me. Even for me, thinking about Roland Garros raises more questions than it answers," he concluded.

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Patrick McEnroe reveals the difference between Pete Sampras and Roger Federer

Roger Federer (L) and Pete Sampras

Speaking on the Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe podcast recently, Patrick McEnroe stated that while Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras loved to win, Roger Federer loved to play tennis.

"Some players love to win, Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras. Roger Federer loves to win obviously, that made him one of the greatest ever, but he just... I don't think I've ever met anyone that just loved to go out there and just hit the ball around," McEnroe said.

Federer and Sampras faced each other just once on the tour, with the Swiss legend winning the match at the 2001 Wimbledon Championships.