Watching Pete playing was always tough for me. Deep down inside, I believed he was the greatest of all time. Deep down here and there, I disliked him. For one reason, he was better than Agassi and I have always been an Agassi fan. For the rest, I don’t know. He was always so into himself, so quiet, non-entertaining. No, I do not want to sound unprofessional and stupid by any means. I do believe he is the greatest but I just don’t want to confess, you know! Honestly, reading “Sampras: Legend in the Works” changed his image in my mind forever. I respect those who do what they do with all they have, with passion, with love. And he did with love all through these years.

Pete Sampras to me is not just Pete Sampras on the court or the tennis player or Bridget’s husband or... To me, he is another Per. To me, he is my past. He is the one person I can relate my teenage years to. And no I was never a fan.

Growing up, I was in love with Per. My best friend on the other hand, was in love with Pete. We used to dream about these two and imagine our future with them, the four of us. We loved tennis so much, more than anything else plus Roxette. Our entire lives revolved around these two: Roxette and Tennis. Might sound boring, but we literally spent years and years adoring these two. We used to watch Agassi and Sampras play, fighting ofcourse during the entire match. Her brother loved Ander, so did I. She loved Pete, so did my dad and brother. So we would all sit and watch the match and ofcourse at the end, there would always be a fight.

Anyways, to make the long story of my life short, I grew up loving two things: Roxette and tennis. Queen always played a role, but I did’t have anyone to share my passion for Queen with. To us, Pete wasn’t the tennis player Pete everyone cheered or Per wasn’t the other half of Roxette girls screamed for. To us, these two were what we wanted them to be for us to look up to them.

I played tennis even more than ever when we moved to Canada. I played everyday and it was just a way for me to keep going in anything else. I missed my friend so much and tennis and Roxette were the only things that I had left from those days, and ofcourse the pictures and the memories. We do not talk to each other anymore due to some stuff that happened and oh well I do not want to discuss that.

Today, Pete said goodbye to professional tennis. That means I wouldn’t watch Pete and Andre play in a Grand Slam versus eachother again. I have lost many dear people in my life; so seeing Pete gone with all his money doesn’t really change anything for me. It was just that tears were rolling down my cheeks as he was giving his speech and as he was crying. I felt like a part of my past was leaving, just like so many other things. All those days that I used to watch him play and pray he’d lose, the times at which all my friend and I talked about were Per and Pete, all those memories by the court...

Yes, I’ve got to face the reallity. Per is married. Pete is married. I am here. My friend is there. Per and Pete are far far away. I live in the nerdy engineering physics world and them, tennis and music... Come on Damineh. Give yourself a break.

So yeah... These little things make you wonder how fast you are growing to lose all those memories... I miss it. You might not. I miss those days with all my heart, all my soul and all that I have. I would never ever change any second of it for anything else. For those were the days that made me the person I am today. Thanks to you my old friend, thanks to you Pete and thanks to you Per.