Reviving an old school tradition of barnstorming, which started with Babe Ruth in the offseasons of the 1920s, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer will play their fourth exhibition; a Garden showdown Monday night.
It will be a classic one-night stand at one of the world's greatest sporting places. This is a unique matchup that exceeds some other such forays in historical terms because you have 26 Grand Slam championships between these two players.
MSG had tennis as recently as 2000, of course, with the WTA Championships -- the successor to the Virginia Slims women's championships. Those were season-ending tour championships, that were vied for by all the best players in the world. This is different. Sampras and Federer is the latter-day version of what we've seen before.
The Beginning
It began in 1948, really, and then it happened again in the early 1970s. The day after Christmas in 1947, Jack Kramer debuted as a pro and faced a veteran barnstormer, Bobby Riggs. More than 16,000 people trudged through 25 inches of snow that night to watch Riggs win in four sets, after a 10-8 second set escape, which gave him a two-set advantage. The box office gross of that event was over $55,000, which shattered any previous records.
Second Set
Next came the 1970s series of tennis champions classics. Rod Laver was fresh off his second Grand Slam. He played a $10,000 winner-take-all event against 41-year-old Pancho Gonzalez and 14,700 jammed into the new Garden. Gonzalez, the old man, scrapped his way to a five-set win. So Laver, supposedly the greatest player ever, was shocked, as were the patrons there that night.
More MSG History
And the third great MSG tennis extravaganza came in 1971. Laver beat the other great Aussie of that era, Ken Rosewall. It was the first of that year's tennis champions classics. Laver won it and then he rolled over the other greats of the day during the course of the year, beating Roy Emerson, Arthur Ashe, and Tony Roche and then eventually a straight set win over Tom Okker at The Garden. Laver won a total of $160,000 during all those tennis champions classics that year.
The Best Ever?
Now hear we come with Federer and Sampras. Federer won the first two matches, but Pete won the third one. And what I've noticed is that Sampras' serve is still as lethal as it was in his prime. His conditioning maybe isn't Grand Slam level obviously -- he's been playing more golf than tennis -- but he has gotten on a regimen of getting back in shape to play the game of tennis. Maybe he's been bored by going to the beach and playing golf everyday.
In a one-time match like this, I think Sampras is an even bet with his serve as the equalizer. The other advantage he has is the serve-and-volley game. Now Sampras, in his prime, played a lot of serve-and-volley. That's something that Federer doesn’t see on the tour these days. And don't forget, the 14-time Grand Slam winner has the ultimate motivation: He does not want to embarrass himself. Sampras has little to lose, but he will be motivated and will make this a tough match on Federer.
Federer is still the best player in the world, has been going on four years, but he's lost a couple matches in a row. Finally, there’s a chink in the armor of the great Federer. Maybe he's getting bored or slipping just a half a notch -- he did not win in Australia; Novak Djokovic, who may be his heir apparent, won there.
But for Federer and Sampras, it's going to be an exciting night because The Garden will be jam-packed. It's a special place and this match will renew a tradition that started in the 1940s, was picked up again in the 1970s and now is back in the new millennium.
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And for those of you who think Sampras is simply too old to roll with the Swiss stud,
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