All Business for Sampras February 10, 2010
Posted by Paul in : Uncategorized , trackback
[This entry was generated by Your Sports NightCap’s Resident Tennis Expert, Payam Tabar. A regular contributor to the radio program for years, with his well-founded analysis and no-nonsense style, Tabar has also been go-to guy for coverage of tennis events large and small. Here, he recaps Monday night’s exhibition between Pete Sampras and Fernando Verdasco at the 2010 SAP Open, in San Jose.]
It was all business for Pete Sampras at the opening night of the SAP Open in San Jose, California. In what seems to be an annual exhibition event to kick off the nightly festivities in San Jose, Pete made his 3rd appearance in 3 years as the Monday night exhibitionist, taking on a main draw contender while entertaining the Bay Area’s finest tennis fans. This year, Pete happened to go up against the #11 ranked player in the world, Fernando Verdasco, which played out to be quite the challenge for the 38 year old champion.
Although, the 6-3, 7-6(2) defeat to the Spaniard took just less than an hour, Sampras was able to demonstrate his ”business as usual” serve and volley style that is deeply missed by fans of the ATP circuit. While working through a calf cramp early in the first set, Pete held serve once and was then broken at 1-2, double faulting at deuce in the no-ad scoring format to give Verdasco the early break.
But after warming up a bit and letting a few shots fly, Pete seemed to be back to his old self. Dropping first serves in the 130 mph range to second serves out wide at 119 mph, Pete was able to hold serve every game, serving and volleying in classic form and eventually pushing Fernando Verdasco to a tie-breaker. But it was during Verdasco’s service games that showed the difference between today’s top players and a retired player who’s been off the pro circuit for about 7 years. Verdasco was throwing in vicious kick serves on both first and second serves, keeping Pete guessing and making it difficult to chip and charge the net off the return; his strategy of choice. And even when Pete was able to neutralize the serve with a conservative slice return, Verdasco would begin to run Pete around the court with heavy groundstrokes, in particular his lefty forehand working cross-court to Pete’s backhand.
“Playing D was hard,” Sampras told the media in his post-match press conference. “It’s harder for me to move these days. He plays with a lot of spin…and he has a tricky serve with a lot of spin. He’s the real deal. He can win a major.”
With Verdasco not giving Sampras any looks to break on return games, the set quickly went to a tie-breaker. After an early mini-break for Verdasco, Pete took a chance by chipping and charging yet again, this time coming through in vintage form with a simple put away at the net. But Verdasco proved too quick and strong, taking Pete’s additional attempts early and ripping heavy passing shots away from the net-crasher. To make matters worse, Pete served up a double fault at 2-5, giving Verdasco a match point, resulting in an immediate close-out of the match.
Having won this event in 1996 and ‘97, and now living in Los Angeles, Pete enjoys taking his private jet up north to San Jose. During the post-match on-court interview, Sampras expressed this enjoyment and his willingness to come back to make it a 4th year in a row in 2011. Through whistles, cheers and a standing ovation, Sampras announced, “If they invite me again, I’d be happy to come back.” With the way Pete is approaching his game (and life) these days, I’m sure we’ll see him again next year. It will be business as usual, regardless of the outcome.
Comments»
Nice job Mr. Resident Tennis Expert!
Excellent postscript PT! Speaking of scripts, I am wondering if Verdasco forgot the script that players are supposed to adhere to in exos. Since Verdasco is new to the heights of the game and probably hasn’t played in too many exos, he may not realize that proper etiquette required him to dump that second set tiebreak and then play out the third set super tiebreak. The crowd wanted the match to go three and the Spaniard may have let his pride get in the way a bit. I am glad that Bill Rapp and Co. continue to bring Pistol Pete back to San Jose each year. However, I think we need a new (and even sexier) opponent for him next year. I would like him to either play Roddick, or get me somebody like Agassi or Johnny Mac.
Good recap, PT. And I like your idea, Neil. But believe it or not, we’ve investigated the possibility of having Andre at the SAP Open. And according to our sources, Agassi’s demands were just too high to bring him in this year, for an exhibition. It will be interesting to see if he decides to play in coming years, as the similar arrangement to Sampras’ could certainly be made: one that would have Agassi sleeping in his own bed in Las Vegas the night of the exhibition.