Samprasfanz

March 11, 2008
CBSSports.com wire reports

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
BY DAVID WALDSTEIN
Star-Ledger Staff

NEW YORK No one will ever know how hard Roger Federer was trying, or how much his desire for a competitive match may have outweighed his hunger for victory, but taken at face value, it was definitely an exciting night of tennis.

Federer and Pete Sampras, two of the best to ever swing a racket, transformed a sloppy exhibition match into a spirited duel of champions that went all the way to an extended third-set tiebreaker before it was finally settled in Federer’s favor.

The two stars, who have a combined 26 Grand Slam titles between them, electrified a sellout crowd in a two-hour spectacle as tennis made a successful return to Madison Square Garden. Playing in front of 19,960 tennis-thirsty area fans who spurred the players to overcome their nerves and rustiness and ultimately provide a competitive final two sets, Federer held on to win 6-3, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6).

“The winner was tennis,” said the ever gracious Federer. “Tennis is back at the Garden and maybe it’s something we can do more of in the future. This is what matters, not the result.”

While Federer clearly showed some of the effects from his recent slump and related bout with mononucleosis, falling behind 5-2 in the third set before rallying for a narrow victory, Sampras showed he can still compete at a very high level, especially when his serve is clicking and he can follow it to the net.

But he continues to dismiss any suggestions that he will make a comeback. Asked if he could go to Wimbledon and beat No. 2 Rafael Nadal, Sampras couldn’t give any answer, other than to say it would just be a fantasy.

“I can’t really answer that,” he said. “Maybe ask Roger. All I can say is, I can be competitive.

“But we’ll never know.”

Federer indicated Sampras could win any single match, but questioned whether he would have the stamina to tie together the seven matches necessary to win it all.

Last night, Sampras had the match on his racket in the third-set tiebreaker, leading 6-5, but Federer won a mini break and then served it out for the victory.

The match was played in front of a riveted capacity crowd that included celebrities such as Tiger Woods, Donald Trump, Luke Wilson and Chloe Sevigny, while John McEnroe and Livingston’s Justin Gimelstob handled the broadcast for the Tennis Channel.

It was the first tennis match at the Garden in almost eight years, since the women’s season-ending tournament in 2000, and the first men’s match here since 1996, and the building was spiffed up for the event, with a blue-carpet court and U.S. Open-style plants and tables at some of the concession areas.

It was primarily good-natured between two champions who have become friends in their recent exhibition series, which Federer now leads 3-1. It featured some spectacular passing shots by Federer, but also many awful unforced errors and brutal mishits in the first two sets, as well as some sportsmanship rarely seen in the high-stakes world of tournament competition.

In the second set Federer gave back a point after it was clear he got the benefit of a bad call. Both players showed signs of rust, and perhaps a little bit of uncertainty in the strange surroundings of a full house at the Garden, where the crowd rooted for the underdog American against his vaunted Swiss opponent.

“My heart was pounding out of my chest,” Sampras said. “I was a little bit nervous at the beginning. The energy was electric. It was an incredible crowd. I thought I had it there for a split second, but he showed why he’s the best player in the world.”

While the result may say something about Sampras’ lingering ability, it may also speak to Federer’s overall fitness level and match readiness in his recovery from mono, and surprising losses in the semifinals of the Australian Open and the first round in Dubai.

But if anyone thinks we are witnessing the leading edge of a great champion’s decline from his amazingly durable and lofty perch, Sampras put that to rest.

‘When it comes down to the big events, I think this is the guy you’re going to see standing with the trophy,” Sampras said at a news conference yesterday morning in Manhattan. “Every great player in all sports go through a few tough losses here and there. I certainly did that.

“Let’s keep it real here. This guy is incredible and he’ll bounce back just fine. I have no question about that.”

http://www.brightcove.tv/playerswf

By Harvey Araton

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Two to tie, three to transcend. Pete Sampras has already said he doubts this will be problematic for Roger Federer, who eventually will replace him as the men’s leader in Grand Slam tennis titles, by 15-14, at least.

But isn’t it fascinating how Sampras, retired since 2002, restrung his rackets and recalibrated his serve just as Federer closed in? What has the restless competitor inside the Sampras subconscious been trying to say? What, if anything, has he set out to do, or undo?

Their exhibition series, arrived with great fanfare to Madison Square Garden on Monday night and delivered with a 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (8-6) Federer victory. The series has on the surface been a fun, intergenerational fantasy, pitting a couple of all-timers whose tour careers intersected once, in 2001. In the fourth round at Wimbledon that year, Federer previewed his coming dominance by ending a four-year hold Sampras had on the very tournament Federer has now won five straight years.

And counting? Or is it possible that Federer is hitting his career plateau?

He had to summon his best when trailing Rafael Nadal in the fifth set on the scarred Center Court lawn last summer. He won his fourth straight U.S. Open title two months later but benefited from a jittery Novak Djokovic, who reversed that result convincingly in the Australian Open semifinals early this year.

Federer’s recently revealed bout with mononucleosis may have been a factor, or perhaps Djokovic, a brash and talented Serb, announced himself to Federer as Federer did to Sampras in 2001.

Seven years later, after four years of virtual invincibility, Federer, 26, finds himself on a losing streak of sorts. First Djokovic out-hit him in Melbourne. Andy Murray bounced him in the first round in Dubai last week. Even Sampras, 10 years Federer’s senior, finished their three-match Asian jaunt last fall on the winning side, albeit on a court so fast that the result was more suspect than the typical exhibition, or X/O, as the players call them.

“Some of the serves down the middle were curving maybe six feet,” said Ivan Lendl, a pretty fair ball-striker from the baseline in his day. “Well, nobody plays on a surface like this.”

That was why Monday’s match, played on a moderately paced indoor court, in front of a capacity New York crowd, was the perfect chance for Sampras to broadcast a message to Federer foes worldwide, as Lendl pointed out in his role as match co-promoter and curious tennis great.

“I think Federer has so much in the bank it will take more than two or three losses to lose it,” Lendl said before Sampras and Federer carted their combined 26 Grand Slam titles into the Garden. “But the other guys are always looking for little chinks.”

It is often said there is a point most No. 1 players reach where the others view them differently, with near-reverence, if not fear. Federer climbed that pedestal and has remained there by seeming to control time itself.

As Lendl explained, the truly gifted have an ability to make us believe the clock moves differently. “In every sport, all the athletes like Gretzky and Jordan, they all look like they have a little more time than anybody else,” he said.

How long can Federer maintain that shotmaker’s edge measured in milliseconds? After hitting with him last spring, Sampras was very public and opinionated when he said that Federer’s contemporaries, by abandoning serve-and-volley tennis and staying back, give him too much time to decide where to send the next stroke of genius.

They need to attack, he said, and who better than him to use a few X/Os to demonstrate the fundamentals of speeding the game up?

“Obviously I’ve got more time on my hands,” a grateful Sampras said. “He’s the one trying to win majors and stay No. 1.” He called the exhibitions “a treat for me, in a way.”

Even while dealing with his medical issues, Federer was happy to indulge his hero. They “hung out,” as he said, in Asia last fall. They went to dinner.

Treat, or trick? Not to say that Sampras diabolically baited Federer into these matches, but anyone could see who was exposing his ego and risking his standing, in the all-time rankings and the current ones.

Sampras could lose and admit to being 36. He could do well, back up the argument he made last summer, have everyone flatter him with questions about another run on the Wimbledon grass that he has already said he has no intention of making.

The Sampras serve remains one of the best in the sport, his volley still unmatched. But loading up the cannon against Federer indoors, or slapping Tommy Haas around in a tune-up for the X/O, is one thing. The Grand Slam grind across the steamy summer is another.

Those are the conditions Federer faces week after week – trying to stay on his pedestal, trying to convince Djokovic, Nadal and the others that it’s his rightful place – from now until he makes the historical claim to where Sampras stands, trying to fend Federer off in the only way left Monday night, one chink at a time

Source: International Herald Tribune

by: JOHN JEANSONNE, Newsday

March 11, 2008

Masters of the universe and tennis superheroes Pete Sampras and Roger Federer last night brought some comic-book wish fulfillment to sold-out Madison Square Garden, a mighty collision of generations for the benefit of sports archeologists.

Federer, rightful heir to the Sampras throne of the previous decade, needed all of his powers for a 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (8-6) victory amid the true dynamics of a champions’ showdown. Sampras offered glimpses of the old chain-saw serve and slam-dunk volley to make Federer earn his keep, which he did with his elegant athleticism, stylish as the faux-tuxedo black attire he favors.

Sampras, as was always his custom, played the proven serve-and-volley fundamentals of an earlier era in the appropriate “classic whites.” And not raggedly, either.

Merely an exhibition, the event was a brilliant bit of egonomics for both men. Sampras, 36, and six years past retirement, assured by his presence that reports regarding the death of his Grand Slam tournament record – an unmatched 14 major titles – was premature. Federer, 12 times a major champion at 26 who only this winter gave glimpses of human frailty with two consecutive tour losses, sought to pre-empt discussion that he has any rival other than history.

Surrounded by the furniture of 21st Century entertainment – the protagonists stepped through a wall of smoke onto the Garden court to rollicking introductions, pounding music and fireworks

Rawalnda Hercules just wanted to hit the tennis ball as hard as she could, even if it meant chasing it down herself.

“I only know a little about tennis,” Hercules said. “I can’t hardly hit it.”

She and her two sisters, Briana and Seychelle, spent a cold hour hitting foam tennis balls out in the parking lot of the Columbus Civic Center on Saturday afternoon courtesy of the Columbus Regional Tennis Association’s block party.

Using the Quick Start format of teaching tennis, CORTA members and various other volunteers gave several hundred area youth a chance to warm up for the Pete Sampras-Todd Martin exhibition match by playing on small, improvised courts.

Seychelle Hercules said she played tennis at the Girls, Inc., tennis camps and at her school, Clubview Elementary.

None of the Hercules sisters knew anything about Sampras — once the No. 1 tennis player in the world — but they were eager to see the match, as was their mother, Marilyn.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Marilyn Hercules. “I’ve never seen a pro match.”

Added Seychelle Hercules, “This is going to be exciting.”

Sampras and Martin lived up to the billing, putting on an entertaining show for a crowd of about 1,500 at the civic center. The exhibition match included an amusing running commentary between the players, as well as good tennis.

At one point, after a slow start, Todd commandeered the umpire’s microphone, telling the crowd, “I will make a shot before the night is over.” He did, pushing Sampras to a tiebreaker in the first set before losing it 7-6 (3).

Sampras opened up the match with a feast-or-famine style, mixing a couple of double faults with aces and unreturnable serves in winning the first game. The two players hit their stride late in the first set with longer rallies. Sampras won the exhibition match 7-6 (3), 6-4 behind his famed booming serves. He closed the match with an ace, one of many on the night.

Sampras and Todd used the match as a warm-up for bigger things. Martin will play in a tournament on Wednesday.

“If I can adjust to his power, I’m in pretty good shape,” Martin said.

Sampras is slated for an exhibition match in New York City with the current No. 1 tennis player in the world, Roger Federer. That match will be Monday at Madison Square Garden. Sampras cited being competitive as a goal for the match.

“I still enjoy playing,” Sampras said. “I’m still competitive. Todd is one of my top rivals and a good friend. I still want to play well.”

The 36-year-old Sampras, who won a record 14 Grand Slam events, has been in retirement for the last five years. He said he knows he made the right decision to walk away from the game. He said listening to the retirement press conference of Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre reaffirmed it.

“That’s exactly how I felt,” Sampras said. “I felt I could still play. But physically, you get tired. I won everything I wanted to win and left on my terms.”

Martin said he noticed all the children playing on the makeshift courts before the match, something he called, “great.” Sampras expressed similar thoughts.

“Hopefully my presence will inspire kids to want to play tennis and grow the game here,” Sampras said.

Tennis players from the Columbus State men and women’s teams, along with Shaw High’s tennis team, helped CORTA with the block party instructions.

“They were conducting some of the games, and then played with them,” said Cheryl Smith, a CORTA board member. “We just wanted to give them a taste of tennis and maybe they’ll say, ‘I like it and want to play.’ “

The Quick Start format features teaching players on 32-foot courts instead of 90-foot courts, and employing smaller rackets and foam balls, said Nita Perry of CORTA.

“Everyone in Europe grew up on mini courts,” Perry said. “You progress from foam balls to low-compression balls. Then, once they are 11 or 12, they can play on regular courts.”

Even though some of the younger children, many who weren’t alive when Sampras won the U.S. Open in 1990 as a 19-year-old, weren’t aware of his stature in the tennis world, the adults were.

“For my age group, Sampras was ‘the man,’ ” Smith said. “He was who we watched.”

Saturday night gave tennis fans a chance to see one of tennis’ all-time greats in person.

Source: Ledger-Enquirer.com