Return Winners: A look back at the 1991 Paris Masters

For the majority of the players in the field, Paris is the last tournament of the season. Here’s a look back at the 1991 final, which foreshadowed an epic Davis Cup weekend soon to follow.

The Result: Guy Forget def. Pete Sampras, 7-6(9), 4-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4

The Setting: Sometimes when you’ve been on the tour for a few years, things finally click. It’s hard to find a better example of that happening than with the season a 26-year-old Forget had in 1991. The former junior standout was a solid pro, with most of his success having come on the doubles court. But in ’91, the big-serving left-hander reached a career-high No. 4 and won five titles in a year that saw him beat Sampras three times.

Sampras, on the other hand, was just 20 years old, and spent most of the year trying to adjust to his newfound status among the game’s elite after winning the US Open the year before. He didn’t win his first title of the year until July and fell in the quarterfinals in New York.

The Final: The top four seeds at the “Super 9” event—Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Jim Courier and Michael Stich—were all out by the third round, leaving accomplished indoors players Sampras and Forget to face off without as much resistance.

During the summer hard-court swing that year, the two met in the finals of Cincinnati, where Forget secured biggest title of his career. In Paris, he picked up where he left off in Cincy, winning the first set in a tiebreak. Sampras, though, stormed back and took the next two sets in the best-of-five encounter. Forget took the fourth, and in the fifth set, it all came down to the 10th game on Sampras’ serve. Sampras got in a hole and after fighting off a couple of match points, was eventually broken, giving the hometown favorite the win. The two would face off only a few weeks later in the same venue in the finals of the Davis Cup, with Forget coming out on top one again to propel France to victory.

1

With his win, Forget became the first Frenchman to win the Paris Indoors title.

49

Aces (Forget, 28; Sampras, 21)

3

Double faults (Forget, 1; Sampras, 2)