"You would have had to call the ambulance if it were John McEnroe" - When Pete Sampras was incensed by chair umpire after controversial call

Pete Sampras is not one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, unlike his compatriots John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors. But a final defeat at the 1998 Cincinnati Masters left the American so incensed that he refused to shake hand with chair umpire Lars Graff afterwards.

Facing Patrick Rafter in the championship bout, Sampras took the opening set 6-1. Rafter bounced back to the second set 7-6(2) in the tiebreaker, and then served for the match at 5-2. With championship point on his side, his serve was called out by the linesperson, only for Graff to overrule the call and award the match to Rafter.

It left Sampras seething as he walked off without shaking the umpire's hands. Speaking at his press conference afterwards, the 14-time Grand Slam champion recalled the one other time he had refused to shake hands with the chair umpire, at the Australian Open. It turned out to be Graff after all, who had made quite a few "tough overrules" against the American to warrant his anger.

Sampras admitted that he was pissed about the overrule in Cincinnati and that he did not feel like he could shake his hand in the heat of the moment.

"I think he was the same guy that did my match in Australia against Kucera. He made some tough overrules. You know, I had a hard time shaking his hand there. In the heat of battle, you feel like you're so pissed, and I was, I really just kind of couldn't believe he did it. You know, it's the heat of the moment. You just kind of -- I just really was upset, you know. I'm hardly ever like that. It just tells you how bad I thought his decision was," Sampras said.

When one journalist asked him the umpire would have been able to get out of his chair at the hand had he done the same to John McEnroe, Sampras joked that his compatriot would have sent him out on an ambulance.

"You would have had to call the ambulance [if it were John McEnroe]," Sampras joked.

"I felt I just got unlucky today, plain and simple" - Pete Sampras

US Open Tennis Championship

Pete Sampras went on to state at the press conference that he got unlucky with the result on the night, with tough calls going against his favor. While the American admitted that the entire reason for the loss was not the final overrule on match point, he couldn't help but lament that the clash ended on a sour note.

"What can you do at this point? Some tough calls. I felt I just got unlucky today, you know. Plain and simple, I had my chances. But it's tough to get overruled on a match point like that, very surprising. I think he made a bad decision. But it's over with now, nothing really much I can do about it," Pete Sampras said.

"Well, he talked big on the line. I'm like, "Okay." I mean, it's a tough -- it takes, you know, big balls to do that. So, I mean, he just overruled it. That's not why I lost the match, but it certainly ended it on a very bad note. I felt I had my chances through the match. Had a breakpoint there. I thought he hit a double-fault on a serve out wide," he added.

Interstingly, Pete Sampras had his revenge the very next year, beating Rafter in the final to win the 1999 Cincinnati Masters.