Why legends Sampras and Agassi should call it a day

After the cataclysmic events of Wimbledon's opening week one thing seems clear to me. Pete Sampras should call it a day right now and Andre Agassi should give serious consideration to joining him in retirement.

The demise of these two great American champions was a watershed in tennis. I had difficulty believing what I was watching as Sampras, Wimbledon's seven-time champion and the greatest grass-court player of all time, could not manage to get fired up for the first two sets out on Court Two against the Swiss, George Bastl.

To me, Pete was flat as a pancake. He could have been orchestrating the crowd and could have turned that match around if he had shown a bit of passion. Then he resorts to reading a letter, which wasn't even from his coach but a message from his wife. That's something he has never done before. When he finally did manage to get back, after a fashion, he was offered the chance in the fifth set to stamp on his opponent, only to miss an approach shot he would once have hit in blindfolded.

Afterwards Pete was insisting he would go out of the game on his own terms. What a strange thing to say. What does it mean? He can't dictate who is going to beat him and who isn't. Does he feels he has to go out on Centre Court and not Court Two? How on earth can he pick what he considers a suitable stage? That is just not on, because he is not going to get to the quarter-finals or semis ever again at Wimbledon, no way. There was talk of Pete's back giving him problems before the first round but he didn't put forward an injury as an excuse or a reason.

I would be very surprised if he plays Wimbledon next year. As for retirement, only the athlete himself can decide when he is ready. I thought about my own situation as a player while I was watching Pete's misery because the same thing happened to me and I knew when the exact minute had come. Although I was never near the Sampras level, my end came on the very same court in the first round of the 1986 Championships when I lost to a guy called Christo Steyn from South Africa.

For a month or two beforehand I had been struggling to practise. I couldn't get motivated and with Wimbledon coming up that was a bad sign. I was two sets up but not enjoying it, and when Steyn suddenly got back a bit in the third I was flat and I finished up losing the fifth set 6-1.

Bob Brett was my coach at the time and when I saw him in the locker room I said: "I know you're annoyed with me because I lost but I want to tell you I'm going into the press conference right now and I'm going to quit."

Both Brett and my then wife, Chris Evert, urged me to sleep on it for 24 hours but I told them: "It's gone, I know." That was the last singles match I played. I was watching Pete's actions and his face, slumped in his chair and looking around the court, and I thought, in a much smaller version, that was me 16 years ago.

Does Pete really want to go on losing to people he could have beaten left-handed three years ago? He is talking about playing the US Open in September but if he does badly there I can't see him at Wimbledon next year.

To a lesser extent the same argument applies to Agassi, too. He can't beat these guys over five sets to win a tournament like he used to. The World Cup exposed a few famous names as being past their best and the same thing has happened on Wimbledon's courts. Agassi is now being outhit from the baseline, so where is he going to go from here?

He has won titles in Scottsdale, Miami and Rome this year, which is fabulous work. But that's not enough for someone like Andre. He wants Grand Slams, and where is he going to win another of those? He didn't play the Australian Open, went out badly at the French and played badly here. If he has a poor US Open, the same question applies to him as it does to Sampras. Where is he going to get fired up again?

It has been a grim week for the United States, with Andy Roddick getting walloped by Greg Rusedski on Friday and their last hope Jeff Morrison losing yesterday. When I first saw Roddick a year ago I thought he was going to be the next No 1. Now I am not convinced. I know it is early in his career, but he has taken a dip. Against Greg, he didn't know how to get back into the match. He just hit the same ball over and over again at a thousand miles an hour. I was impressed, though, with Morrison, who got in as a lucky loser. He is a lovely player and knows how to play to the crowd. I like James Blake a lot and Mardy Fish has potential, so the Americans still have people coming through. Things are not as bad as we thought they might be a few years ago.

But for Sampras and Agassi the final curtain has to be close. After what Goran Ivanisevic did at Wimbledon last year you can never count anybody out, but in truth we saw the end of two great players here last week.

In an interview with Ronald Atkin