Tennis: Sampras scrapes past Cowan

Britain's Barry Cowan pushed Pete Sampras to a five set thriller and the brink of the greatest upset in tennis history at Wimbledon.

The Briton, ranked a lowly 265th in the world, came back from two sets down amid barely believable scenes on Court One against the defending champion and seven-time winner.

And it was with an enormous sigh of relief that the number one seed finally got the better of the Lancashire left-hander, eventually winning an epic second round clash 6-3 6-2 6-7 4-6 6-3.

Sampras could not have envisaged what was to come as he breezed through the opening two sets in routine fashion and looked set to record his 30th consecutive victory at the All England Club with ease.

In contrast Cowan's first ever victory at SW19 had only come when he beat fellow wild card and compatriot Mark Hilton on Monday and even the enthusiastic crowd never realistically expected anything like what they witnessed.

But the 26-year-old fully deserved his moments of glory as he saved seven break points in the third set before taking it on a tie-break and then breaking the legendary Sampras serve to take the fourth 6-4 and level the match.

Perhaps inevitably Sampras finally asserted his authority in the fifth set, breaking twice for a 4-0 lead, although there was still time for Cowan to break the American again and incredibly threaten to repeat the trick in the next service game.

Sampras needed to hit two aces to save two more break points and stay a break up and finally Cowan's chance had gone, Sampras serving out to love with an ace for one of his hardest-fought victories ever.