At 6-3, 3-2 in favor of Roger Federer last night, it looked like this exhibition match against the all-time Grand Slam singles champ, Pete Sampras had everything - everything but the tennis.
Of course, the way things are these days, that may not be a fatal flaw. Still, that sellout crowd of 19,690 (including a healthy representation of TennisWorld readers), the mystique of Madison Square Garden, the presence of John McEnroe in the commentary booth, Roy Emerson in the hospitality lounge, and Barry Diller and Tiger Woods (among others) in the courtside seats - all of that more or less suggested that a barnburner on the order of Jimmy Connors vs. Guillermo Vilas (1977 Masters round robin), or Ivan Lendl vs. Boris Becker (1988 Masters final) was required by the forces of celestial order, if not the fickle command of another attendee, Donald Trump.
But there was Pete Sampras, struggling mightily, lumbering - whoever thought anyone would write the word "lumbering" to describe Sampras! - toward the net, heart pounding in his chest (from anxiety, no less, rather than the more familiar predatory lust), flailing at some shots, swiping at others, looking very much like the "former" player that he is, suffering humiliation at the hands of a "current" player, and no ordinary one at that. Federer was lean as a bean (you've got admit, when he sticks his left leg out as he gets ready to serve, it is curved and thin in exactly the same way as a green bean). He was dressed all in black, albeit in short pants and a short-sleeved shirt, looking disconcertingly the way you imagine Johnny Cash would have on an excursion to the beach.
In short, it did not look good. It did not look good for tennis that this trumpeted exhibition might turn out to be a yawner for the ages, and it did not look good for the promoters that people were paying a hundred, five hundred, a thousand bucks per ticket to watch Federer beat up on Sampras. You know, that poor guy whose Grand Slam singles title record he's about to snatch away with the same fingers that so nimbly flick second serves sharply cross court.
In the early going, I was disappointed by what I perceived watching Federer vs. Sampras IV in person, instead of on television. Sampras looked inadequate. Even when he hit a solid overhead, I caught myself thinking, Take it easy, old-timer! And on one occasion, when Sampras was caught flat-footed and unable even to lunge for a passing shot, an un-thinkable occurred to me: Here was King Lear in Nike shorts, wandering around on the heath while thunderbolts in the form of Roger Federer serves and forehands lit the night sky all around him.
Poor Pete, I thought. Is it the fate of all aging champs to run out the string the same way, to find themselves plowing, vain and vainly, straight ahead into the jaw-shattering and nose-obliterating punches of a younger rival and successor? Aren't any of these guys smart enough to avoid that fate?
Well, once again, in due time I would hear the tennis gods tsk-tsking and ultimately chiding me: Oh, ye of little faith. . . Because I had forgotten that Sampras is a champion, and champions specialize in doing extraordinary things. Here's a tip: if the subsequent events made you rub your fists in your eyes and mutter, I don't believe what I'm seeing, this can't be. . . , it wasn't necessarily because something fishy was going on. For this is what the great ones do, old and young ones alike; this is what Jimmy Connors did in August of 1991, and this is what Pancho Gonzalez did, at age 41, at Wimbledon in 1969. This is what they have done for ages. They make you think, No, this can't be happening. . . They specialize in the improbable bordering on the amazing, and if you doubt the validity of what they're doing, you don't deserve to be watching them.
You all saw what happened: Slowly, almost glacially, Sampras pulled himself together. Realizing that his hopes of earlier in the day (when he said, "I'd just like to get a few games into the match to settle my nerves without giving up too much ground") had been dashed, but good, he did what all great champions at one time or another have done, and what Roger Federer one day will surely do. He began a long, slow climb back, one point after another, following the imperative of A Beckett-esque interior monologue: I can't go on, I must go on, I can't go on, I will go on. It's a measure of how times have changed that this monologue now is seen as a testament to the futility of life, rather than the refrain to the battle hymn of some many people who achieve great things.
It certainly was the refrain in Sampras's mind as he embarked on a long and perhaps impossible journey back. But Sampras was well-equipped to make that trip. He had his history as a champion who knew full well that all is not lost until it is. He also had his residual, remarkable, competitive drive; the ability to play every match as if it were his first match, that constant seeking of trial by fire, even though his spirit and heart have already been burned and seasoned into something tough as leather (come to think of it, perhaps that's exactly why the flame no longer hurts, or causes him to flinch).
And Sampras also had the equanimity of his opponent, Federer. This was, after all, an exhibition match, not a Wimbledon final. And while Federer didn't exactly throw him points, or otherwise condescend to him - with all the world watching, that would have been far worse than the seemingly inevitable 6-3, 6-4 Federer win! - he was also no more eager to see Sampras fall to the heath so early, clutching his eyes, than were the rest of us.
But there's this, too: regardless of how Federer measured and weighed things, and what his calculations implied about his kindness or talent, this was very close to a life-or-death struggle for Sampras. Federer in the Garden in an exo, or Andre Agassi in a U.S. Open final, what difference could it possibly make? What difference did it make, what Federer said, thought or did? You were Pete Sampras, and you were getting your butt kicked. You can't go on, you must go on.
Slowly, almost glacially, Sampras pulled himself together, clinging to the hands of time, dangling from them like a man in someone else's dream, pulling, pulling, pulling himself back to former times. Federer stood by, sometimes with a wry smile on his face, sometimes with a bemused look that seemed to ask, Hmmm. . . this is kind of interesting, just what does the old-timer have in mind now? What the old timer had in mind in mind was leg-whipping the youngster in his fashionably black gear, then maybe gouging out an eyeball or tearing off an ear.
As the games in that set went by, you could see Sampras finding something he seemed to have misplaced in the five years since he last played, and located it in that special, secret place where champions go when pushed far enough. You know, that place where suddenly you aren't really playing another guy (another Tilden or Gonzalez or Laver or Borg or Nadal) but communing with yourself - humming a tune while you pour the ingredients of your genius into the measuring cup (a pinch of serve, a dash of forehand pass, a beaker of Wilanders) to fix your inner beast a little something to eat.
With a little something in his stomach, Sampras burped and felt better. By the time he won the second set tiebreaker, his game had settled and jelled, and once again we saw signs of the Sampras of yore - the effortless way he served those aces and service winners, the purposeful tennis that eliminated the option of rallying. When you played vintage Sampras, you knew points were going to end - one way or another - within six or seven shots. As Federer said later, "It's a little different today, the way guys play. A lot of guys just rally or hope for a mistake, or just try to be very aggressive from the baseline. But Pete, he forces it more."
