December 3, 2008
Sampras Beats 'Best Ever' McEnroe On London Return
Pete Sampras received a rapturous, hero's welcome in his first appearance on English soil in six years as he defeated John McEnroe 6-3, 6-4 at the BlackRock Masters Tennis in London.
In the opinion of Sampras, McEnroe played the best tennis he has ever produced against the seven-time Wimbledon champion, but it still wasn't enough to slay the younger of the two Americans at the Royal Albert Hall.
McEnroe forced 0-40 on Sampras's opening service game, but he couldn't quite convert his only real opportunity on the Sampras serve.
After that, some of the rallies and reflexes were breathtaking for men supposedly past their peak.
Both players served and volleyed throughout, and a packed crowd in the Royal Albert Hall savoured every moment. So did the players.
"Talking to a few of the guys about playing here they told me there were great crowds and that the arena was phenomenal and it really was," said Sampras.
"To be retired for six years and still be able to play in front of good crowds like this is an honour. It was a fun night of tennis, it really was."
And he had some generous words for McEnroe.
"To be 49 and to be able to serve and volley and be effective and still have the hands and the movement is incredible. Forty nine is not young in tennis so more credit to him for keeping himself fit. I know he does a lot of off court training and it's paid off. I'm really impressed."
So was McEnroe.
"This is the twelfth year I've played and I don't know if there's a lot of matches I've played better than this and I lost," said McEnroe. "I was a little unlucky in some of the games, like the two service games and when I had 0-40 in the first game. It's sort of like being thrown out to the wolves to play Pete in my first match but it's just good to be part of it even though I lost."
Sampras said he might use his day off on Thursday to visit Wimbledon. He hasn't been back to the scene of his greatest triumphs since he lost to George Bastl in 2002.
Elsewhere, Greg Rusedski scraped past Stefan Edberg 7-6(7), 5-7,10-6 (Champions' Tie Break), and Cedric Pioline defeated Jeremy Bates 6-3, 6-4.
MURRAY DREAM COMES TRUE
Growing up, Jamie Murray dreamt of trading groundstrokes with the great Pete Sampras. On Wednesday in London, his dream came true.
Needing a practice partner with a swinging, left-handed delivery ahead of his clash with John McEnroe, Sampras asked Murray, who is here to play in the doubles event.
The pair laughed and joked together, and for Murray, it was a special experience.
"It was a lot of fun," said Murray. "I don't think I've ever concentrated as hard in my life on a tennis court but it's got to be done against Pete. The first ball he fed in was about 120 mph. It was a lot of fun and he still hits the ball as sweet as a nut and he was caning it from the back of the court right the way through. But I enjoyed it and I never thought or expected that I'd get the chance to do it in my life."
4 December 2008
Sampras brings down the house by beating McEnroe
By Paul Newman
The winner of 14 Grand Slams plays to the crowd at the Royal Albert Hall
During his record-breaking career he was known as Pistol Pete. Last night the Royal Albert Hall was introduced to Prankster Pete, the latest recruit to the veterans' circuit.
Pete Sampras displayed many qualities on his way to 14 Grand Slam titles, but a sense of humour was not generally among them. However, in beating John McEnroe 6-3, 6-4 in his first match at the BlackRock Masters, the 37-year-old American achieved the remarkable feat of upstaging his opponent, who is usually the undisputed champion when it comes to playing to the crowd.
As early as the first game McEnroe was arguing with the umpire and line judges over line calls. Sampras immediately strode forward and, to the amusement of the packed crowd, called out to a line judge who had upset McEnroe with his "in" verdict on an ace: "Don't be intimidated!"
When another ace was called in as Sampras served for the first set, McEnroe asked the umpire whether he had seen it. "I saw it," Sampras piped up, before bringing the house down with his impersonation of a Hawk-Eye video replay. Holding the ball aloft to retrace its flight, he clambered slowly over the net before leaving it on the centre line where he reckoned it had landed. McEnroe was speechless, though his facial expression suggested that he thought Sampras could not be serious.
This was Sampras' first appearance in Britain since his last match at Wimbledon six years ago. He played his final match on the main tour in the same year, winning the US Open, and did not pick up his racket again until he started playing occasional exhibition matches two years ago.
McEnroe, 49, is 12 years older than his fellow American, though their careers briefly overlapped. Sampras won all three of their matches. In their only meeting at a Grand Slam tournament, 19-year-old Sampras won in four sets on his way to his first major title at the 1990 US Open. This time Sampras appeared to play well within himself. McEnroe himself still plays a mean game and served and sliced to good effect, but when Sampras found a rhythm on his serve and his volleys the gap between the two men was evident.
McEnroe held on until Sampras broke serve to take a 5-3 lead in the first set, converting break point with a crashing forehand cross-court pass that almost scythed his opponent in half. Two aces helped him serve out to love to take the set.
The second set followed a similar pattern. At 4-4 McEnroe misjudged a forehand return and the ball bounced on the baseline to give Sampras his break. Victory was secured minutes later with a thumping service winner down the middle of the court.
"I really enjoyed it," Sampras said afterwards. "To be retired for six years and still be able to play in front of a crowd like that is an honour."
McEnroe said last year that he would seed Sampras in the top five if he played Wimbledon again. He said nothing had changed his views since then. "That serve is just scary," he said. "I don't think any of the guys outside the current top four would want to play him."
Sampras is the clear favourite to win his round-robin group and looks likely to play Greg Rusedski in Sunday's final. The former British No 1 won his second match in a row yesterday when he beat Stefan Edberg 7-6, 5-7, 10-6.
Rusedski served with such venom that Edberg offered his racket to a ballgirl as protection after she twice failed to get out of the way of his thunderbolts. Edberg had his chances, however, and was made to regret his patchy form in the first set.
December 4, 2008
Pete Sampras holds off McEnroe in London return
By Neil Harman
They were introduced in the "read my lips" manner reminiscent of the civil servant who used to intone the casualty list from the Falklands conflict. John Mac --- en --- Roe and Pete Sam --- pras. Very Royal Albert Hall it may have been, but somehow a meeting of two men who have won 21 grand-slam singles titles between them merited a jazzy lead-in, even if half the audience was high on champagne in the plush boxes and those in the cheaper enclosures were the beige cardigan brigade.
This was something to get worked up about, a match that would have lifted the roof from Madison Square Garden, in New York, had them hootin' and hollerin' in Las Vegas and caused a wild frenzy in any Asian capital you could care to mention. In good old London, they were Mac --- en --- Roe and Sam --- pras, but what a sight to behold were these grandest of the slammers, toying with our memories with strokes, splendour and the odd splenetic outburst, mostly from you know who.
When the idea was first mooted a couple of decades back about an old boys' knockabout league that has now become a multimillion-pound business, this was what the originators had in mind. McEnroe, two months short of his 50th birthday, his all-white outfit as ghostly pale as his skin, topped off with a grey mop, against Sampras, who is receding a touch, wears trainer socks, carries two huge sweatbands where once he used his right thumb to flick away the sweat, is unshaven and looking a touch like something from Pirates of the Caribbean. But my God, can they still play.
In their professional career, they met three times and Sampras won them all, the second of which was the four-set semi-final of the 1990 US Open, sandwiched between wins over Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi that were to crown a shy, disbelieving 19-year-old as the youngest winner of his national championship, the first of his 14 grand-slam titles. It was six years from McEnroe winning the seventh and last of his, in his halcyon year of 1984 when he ruled the sport.
He has lorded it over the seniors tour longer than he dare be reminded but that is the essential McEnroe, never knowingly understated. What would this tour be without him, would Sampras have been tempted to return to the grindstone if the opposition was, and this is no detriment to their talents, Paul Haarhuis, Jacco Eltingh, Chris Wilkinson and Jeremy Bates? No, McEnroe has single-handedly saved this element of the game and it is against him, even at 49, that the best want to be at their best.
That he firmly believed he could beat Sampras made this occasion irresistible; that Sampras had lost to him in an event in America this year when he knew that he was hurt, heaped a little extra sweetener into the mix.
The score was rightly 6-3, 6-4 in favour of Sampras in the first match of their round-robin group of the BlackRock Masters, largely because he had 12 years in hand and can still serve out of a tree when the mood takes him. When Sampras actually made a tennis crowd laugh, McEnroe was pretty much a dead man stumbling.
Serving for the first set, Sampras thundered down an ace on the opening point. McEnroe stood, arms akimbo, staring at the spot where he felt the ball had landed. Kim Craven --- though he most certainly did not live up to his surname --- said he went along with the linesman's call. From the opposite end of the court, Sampras suddenly shouted "I saw it." He promptly raised a ball over his head, ambled forward, climbed the net, his arm still raised and placed the ball gently down on the centre service line.
You sensed that, against anyone else, McEnroe would have made a three-course meal of a rant. "I was really impressed with John," Sampras said. "He's been playing tennis almost every week since he retired from the Tour, he serve and volleyed and I found his serve hard to pick. This is a tough court to play on --- I wish they had slowed it up a little."
Today, Sampras may sneak down to the All England Club. "Can you get in without a suit and tie?" he asked. We think they will forgive him if he has left his in Beverly Hills.