Not that the mainstream sports media bothered to take notice (I mean you ESPN...seriously, no mention at all? Not even during PTI...and Michael Wilbon was once a promising tennis player?!), but Roger Federer and Pete Sampras put on quite the show at a sold-out Madison Square Garden Monday night.
In fact, the 36-year-old Sampras (a full 10 years older than Rog) had the World No. 1 on the brink at 2 - 5 in the third and deciding set and it took the Fed-Express deploying all his powers to climb back and finally win it 8-6 in the final tiebreak.
Pretty incredible that Sampras can play at this level (Rosanne and I watched him dismantle Jim Courier at the Home Depot Center a couple of years ago, effortlessly cracking 129 mph serves at will). Dude, forget about Roger Federer, at this point I am not even sure that the ESPN-beloved Tiger Woods (you can't go three minutes without the many sports anchors fawning over him online, on the radio, on television, or in print) is ahead of Pete in terms of historical sports figures (even if Hank Aaron anointed him the greatest sportsman, ever; the PTI boys were more circumspect putting him in the same group as Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, with Tony Kornheiser daring to to put Woods ahead of Jordan).
One thing is for certain, just as Pete admitted that he would not have played in exhibitions like these at this point in his own career, I don't think Tiger would go out of his way and hamper his own preparations to become an "ambassador" for his sport the way Roger Federer has been. Roger is so much more accessible, friendlier, charming, willing to talk than Tiger (and English is his fourth language!) that it's not even a question about who the most gracious athlete in the world is.
The Aussies went down, Tom Brady went down, even Roger Federer went down...here's hoping Tiger Woods follows suit at the Masters.
Okay, enough of Tiger, back to the two men here.
Hats off to both Pete and Rog for going around the world and displaying the kind of exemplary athleticism and class that might finally put tennis back on the map here.
NYT Column
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