Lancashire lad enters game's folklore

It would have been the most amazing result in the history of tennis, but if it did not happen in the Wimbledon gloaming last night – a 26-year-old Fiesta driver from Ormskirk, Lancashire, did not beat the great Pete Sampras – something utterly improbable and glorious did.

Barry Cowan, who in his far-flung, hand-to-mouth, tennis travels was once obliged to fight off rats in a Bangladesh hovel, took Sampras to five sets on the No 1 court. He riveted the nation and fought the most successful player in the history of the game – a man who holds a record 13 Grand Slam titles and has won Wimbledon seven times – to the point of exhaustion.

For nearly three hours the left-hander Cowan strode into millions of British hearts by his refusal to bend the knee to the superlatively gifted American. On the hill outside the arena thousands of fans lacking the hottest ticket of the tournament so far watched Cowan's heroics on a giant TV screen.

Inside No 1 Court, belief was suspended as the formality of a Sampras victory turned into something extraordinary, quite unmatched in British tennis since the barnstorming days of the last home champion, Fred Perry. A male British tennis player was competing at the top of the game, trading, almost ace for ace, passing shot for passing shot, with a player who has majestically rewritten the records of the game.

Cowan's reward, beyond a place in the folklore of the game on to whose edges he has clung so desperately ever since he left secondary school as a 14-year-old on a modest tennis scholarship, is £12,500. It is a fraction of what Sampras can earn by putting his name to an advertisement or showing up for an exhibition game. Sampras became a multi-millionaire at the age of 19, when he won the US Open and opened up the floodgates of commercial endorsement. Cowan can still only dream of such largesse. But what he has now he will no doubt consider precious, justifying all the years of struggle through small tournaments and a grind up the ladder of rankings which still leaves him more than 250 places from the peak.

At 26, Cowan's chances of winning a place among the tennis élite are remote. The new stars, as Andre Agassi was saying earlier this week, are coming bigger and stronger – and younger every year. Agassi said it was the great challenge facing Sampras and himself, this requirement to resist the pressure presented by a new generation. He did not have Barry Cowan in mind. But even such a grandee of the game as Agassi was obliged to turn his attention to the ill-considered lad from Lancashire last night.

Sampras paid his own, mute tribute when he raised his fist in a gesture of respect. Even when Cowan's cause seemed utterly lost, and he lost his service twice to Sampras in the final set, he rallied once more, stole a service game from Sampras and threatened to resume a comeback fight which started when he stunned the champion by winning a tie-break in the third set. In the end, Cowan surrendered 6-3 in that last set. But it was a surrender which came with full military honours.