Even if he goes now it will be the real Sampras we recall

Deciding when to retire as a tennis player is a lonely, personal decision and each case is unique. For Pete Sampras it is about whether his battered ego and patience can handle the grind of finding out if he has one more run or if his career is well and truly over.

Having won more than half his grand slam titles at Wimbledon he will want to finish in a way that he feels is palatable and he will feel that he cannot go away with his head held high, with the career he's had, after losing to George Bastl on court two. But he may not have a choice in the end. Remember, it could get even worse.

Sampras's ego has taken a pounding and he now needs to go away and do some thinking. He has not won a tournament since taking the title here two years ago and questions about his future are bound to arise. These are questions that only the individual can answer. He has to be alone with himself without all the distractions that are here.

It would have been a big mistake if he had walked into his post-match press conference and said: "I quit." He must go somewhere where he can find a bit of perspective, where he can get in touch with himself and ask the questions: how hungry am I and how is my ego able to put up with these losses?

At 30 he still could have another blast in him. But you wonder, given some of his shocking recent results, if he matured early and no longer has it in him. He won the US Open aged 19 and he looked like a man, not a boy who was almost a man. A lot about Pete's game is his quickness and sharpness and maybe his reflexes now are more of someone in his mid to late 30s. Against Bastl it was not the Sampras we are all used to seeing.

Every player goes through times when you wonder if this is it, and there's nobody more in that spotlight than former champions. Andre Agassi, at 32, is the only one of the great men in the last 20 years to try to hang on into their 30s, apart from Jimmy Connors.

Many of the players, such as Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker and John McEnroe, have retired early and become, at times, lost souls, not knowing where to put their energies. It's better, even if the ego is beaten up, to stay with the tennis focus you have until you honestly know in your heart that you have another direction to go in which is going to be fulfilling.

It doesn't have to be your next career, it's just about being content, maybe as a husband or a father, wife or mother, and being the best you can be at whatever you choose. Sampras can no longer have his focus singularly on tennis, having got married two years ago, and when the distractions grow it depends on the individual as to how he deals with it. In your late 20s or early 30s you're still not mature enough to juggle being both the good partner and the selfish athlete. They don't go very well together and Pete is not ready to give up the tennis just yet.

What you have to be able to do is to build a wall round you when you're playing tennis and be able to focus on it 150%. Connors, late in his career, used to have these short, sharp practice sessions which were incredibly intense. He had a wife and kids and business interests but he was still getting to the semi-finals of slams because of his focus.

When I retired in February 1997 I had started working in broadcasting, I'd started dating somebody I would eventually marry and life was moving on. I knew the time was right. I was winning very few matches but out of the blue I realised there was one tournament that I would be comfortable with being my last.

It was in Oklahoma City and was symbolic in that the tournament director had the same role when I played my first tournament in 1978 in Washington DC. It was like a full circle. I beat a couple of players in a row for the first time in a couple of years and I retired content.

But I almost went the way of the early quitters in 1989. It was my 11th year on tour and I hit the wall. I had been consistently between three and seven in the rankings, top in doubles and all of a sudden I felt like the tank was totally empty and I wasn't sure I could join the chase to be at the top again. I felt I didn't have it in me any more and actually announced my retirement on an impulse.

But I was only 27 and, once I realised I was just going through my first tough time on tour, I quickly pulled those words back.

Borg had a similar reaction in 1981, despite having won five straight Wimbledon titles and six French Opens. He realised that McEnroe had his number and he wasn't going to be No1. His tank was empty and before you knew it he was in retirement at 26, which was a real shame.

Sampras faces a similar dilemma. If we have seen the last of the seven-times champ then in time, when you close your eyes and think of Sampras, I am sure you will not think of court two and Bastl but centre court and Pete holding up another trophy.