As most of you know, I met with Pete Sampras on Tuesday in Los Angeles, more or less wrapping up some loose ends for his autobiography, which will be available next summer, in time for the US Open, perhaps even Wimbledon. We have a good working draft that still needs some tweaking and revision, but the heavy lifting is done.
We did our work close by the handsome Christmas tree in Pete and Bridgette's living room - a gorgeous eight or nine foot tall scotch pine, strung with colored lights and nothing else (as of then). That's very Pete. Simple and understated.
Of course, Pete and I had to talk about the recent three-match exhibition series he played in Asia with Roger Federer. Most everyone who paid attention was mildly surprised to see that Pete actually won one of those matches (the last one), and many skeptics thought it must have been a bone thrown to Pete - or a ploy to hype their upcoming, March exhibition in Madison Square Garden.
The night they arrived in Seoul, Korea, for the first stop of the tour, Roger called Pete and asked what he was doing. When Pete said, "Nothing," Roger invited him up, just to hang out and talk - which they did. "It was a lot of fun," Pete said, "It's funny, but I don't think I ever did that once in my playing days - just called a guy to see if he wanted to hang out some. This was a different situation, but still. . . the whole exo tour had that nice feeling of camaraderie. We traveled together, we ate together, we got to know each other pretty well. Roger is an easy guy to talk to."
The core group on this tour consisted of Pete and his older brother and manager, Gus, Roger and Mirka and Roger's manager, Tony Godsick of IMG. Pete had prepared for the three-night stand extensively, hitting with Sam Querrey every other day for about two weeks. "It was about as hard as I've played in five years," he said. "I went full out, trying to get my body and rhythm right. I thought I needed to sharpen up my server and volley game. I didn't want to go out there and embarrass myself."
Pete felt rusty and overanxious during the first match, in Seoul ("I was just trying to get my bearings"). He was more comfortable in the second meeting, at Kuala Lumpur, where he lost six-and-six. And, as you know, he won the third and final match, at Venetian Macao. There have been a lot of rumors and dodgy claims flying around since that win, and I think it might be a good idea to go back and read the original news reports, complete with the quotes of both players, to see just what claims players were - and weren't - making. I'm still struck by the mutual respect in those quotes.
Partly for your benefit, then, I asked Pete, point-blank, in exactly these words: "So, how competitive was it?"
Pete replied: "We were both trying. Obviously I wasn't being light on him in any way, but I didn't feel that he was going light on me, either. One big factor in there was the courts were fast - really fast. And that really worked in my favor. In our third match, I felt that I was right there with him. My thing was to try to make it competitive, and his thing was. . . to win. Once we walked out and saw those big crowds and once the ball was in play, we were both pretty pumped. I felt we took it seriously - he seemed into it, from where I was standing. But then I know it was was an end-of-the-year thing for him, and obviously it was an exhibition."
According to Pete, the two men spent quite a bit of time talking about the men they had to play in their respective generations. In his era, Sampras had to contend with a greater range of styles than Federer does today: there were serve-and-volleyers like Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker, and baseliners like Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi. TMF did say something interesting to Pete after the Macao match: He told him that it was hard to have to play someone who served and volleyed; it just wasn't a style Roger faced too often anymore.
Having faced so many different styles, and knowing what kind of ball those men hit - and what kind of a ball The Mighty Fed hits - Sampras came to the conclusion that the players of today are ill-equipped to beat Federer. Their styles are too similar, and they play right into TMF's hands. "How is a David Ferrer going to hurt Roger? Roger is just too good at what he does for those guys to have a shot. They can't match' his versatility, his shot making, or his movement. And they don't have enough power to contain him, or force him out of his comfort zone."
Pete was very impressed with Roger's game. His favorite Federer shot? "That little backhand flick he sometimes hits, when he's pressured or when he wants to up the pace a little," Sampras said. "That's a great shot."
Pete has this typically cut-to-the-chase analysis of the way he matches up with TMF: "Let's face it, when I play him, he's going to do what he does and I'm going to do what I do. It's not real complicated."
Pete didn't bother to flesh out that comment, and he didn't need to - not if you're capable of reading between the lines. I think what Pete is saying is that what he and Roger do is different. And because it's different, and both men are great champs, nothing is predictable and no outcome can be too surprising - not in theory, anyway. And, in this specific case, not when the match is played on a fast court that really plays into Pete's hands, and in a basic situation where there isn't a great deal for Roger to gain by playing as if his life depended on it.
I don't think these matches were at all meaningless, and at the same time I wouldn't read too much into them. In the end, I think they may have said a lot less about Pete and Roger than about the different way the game is played at the pro level now, as compared to Sampras's time.
PS - When I originally wrote this post, I forgot to add the following, which to my mind is absolutely classic Pete Sampras stuff:
At the end of our conversation, I asked Pete if his father, Sam, had watched the Asian exos. Pete just shrugged and said, "Naw, he doesn't get Tennis Channel."
What does that television ad say, "Priceless"?