From the ATP site:

Same article from Pacific Life Open

http://www.pacificlifeopen.com/1/news/federer1.asp

Good for them.

Wise, where are you?

I want to get your thoughts.

Cool.. great find, MJT!!! B)

Cue feeding fenzy from 'weak era' pro Sampras brigade on tennis message boards all around the world.. roflmao

This shows the mutual respect they share. Just a shame that certain individuals can't replicate this.

It's already causing a storm on the BBC site...I am just waiting to see if this is, indeed, confirmation of Pistol Pete's return to the circuit ;)

That's something else though, isn't it? Federer and Sampras having a practice together in Pete's "backyard"?! II'd love to see an exhibition match between them both....forget on-peak, off-peak, weak era vs. strength and depth...it would be an utter privilege to see them in an exhibition.

Sampras retired in 2002 but Federer admitted: "Surprisingly he was very good, but not good enough to beat me!"

Classic from Federer, though.... :D

Yip.. but i'd say that the fact that Fed and Sampras tuning up together is certainly up there with the most "chilling" of warnings that can be issued to their opponents... ;)

The BBC have also reported on this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/6437011.stm

There's a exerpt of this press conference which provides a little more information than the written reports do.. It's good to hear this as the written word of course often doesn't provide context.. It was clearly a very light-hearted part of the press confrerence. It was clear that the press were soo keen to find out more about this.. and Fed was just giving enough away to retain the element of mystique about it.. great stuff!! ;)

Yes, Federer must love it-just giving enough away, and getting everyones interest up at fever pitch...

Still, it's worked!! Not only curious, but am just in awe of Fed pitching up chez Sampras for a few practice rounds... :bow:

Absolutely!! :bow:

I think that it's so great that Fed just called Pete and said 'fancy hitting a few balls?'.. and that Pete said: 'Sure'.. and then they did for a couple of days!

All very simple.. none of this 'player's agent talking to another player's agent' rubbish.. a personal phone call. So very refreshing to hear. :ok:

Apparently Tony Roche once mentioned that was a fabulous aspect of Federer.. he had been surprised that Roger had called him personally to ask him to coach him, and was really touched by this fact.

Another example of this is that Larry Stefanki nearly coached Murray, but he said that the difference was that it was one of Murray's team that contacted him whereas Fena called him personally, and that was much more important to him..

Anyway, back to Fed and Sampras.. yes, the prospect ofthem playing an exhibition match is a fabulous one! :clap: Who knows, they might team up in doubles?!! Fed has already mentioned that he and Rafa will do at some stage, so why not Roger and Pete too?? :)

Federer never said he would play doubles with Nadal. Nadal asked and he politely refused. Roddick suggested something similar a few years earlier too. The rumour is that Federer was aghast at the thought of him helping Nadal or Roddick to improve at net!

Yes, I'd heard that Roger had declined the ooption to play doubles with Rafa at Madrid last year.

However, I do recall that he'd said that it would be fun to do some time, i.e. he didn't rule it out in the future.

Obviously the score would have been 6-1, 6-1 to Pete and thats why Federer is not revealing it ;)

:doh: Chet! Where is your brain?? What's obvious is that Pete was just feeling out Federer's game and letting Roger win, to give him a false sense of confidence. That way, when Pete returns at Wimbledon, and they meet in the final, Pete can bring his A-game and take Fed by surprise.

Would be surprised if Fed had managed that many games chet ;)

Sounds like they had fun though, which is the main thing. Maybe the Swiss got bored of beating all his current weak opponents and fancied a challenge for once? :devil:

Will be interesting to hear Pete's comments about this, I'm sure he'll be incessantly interviewed about it soon enough. I'd like to see an exhibition between them for sure - they'd certainly both put maximum effort in. And I do hope that the 'surprisingly' comment was friendly ribbing from Fed :huh:

If a 19 year old Fed can beat a 29 year old Sampras as Wimbledon Champion , its logical to conclude that Pete at 35 would easily beat Federer at his peak even with his lack of match practice. :bs:

roflmao roflmao roflmao roflmao

OK, more seriously, I found great that these two great Champions have decided to have some practice together: To be honest i do not believe a sec that this is a sort of spontaneous move coming from one of the two....I firmly believe that it is more the IMG to create this "out of schedule" event simply to increase even more the attention of the Indian Competition (i.e. FED after two days of practice with Pete, I mean he will be able to play even better than usual..I mean he had some train with an (old) Lion)...

In any case it seems to me clear that:

A. They are quite certainly in a friend relationship...just perfect.
B. I really hope next time they will do an exhibition for charity...There will be plenty of people ready to pay a good amount of money to see them playing again... :rolleyes:

BTW: Big Al :ok: :ok:

I'd be pretty sure it was all friendly ribbing - reading/hearing Federer interviewed about Sampras before has revealed nothing but (well deserved!) respect....

I'd love to watch them play... would be interesting to see how an ageing Sampras performed in contrast to Fed's peak opponents, and also to see how he dealt with a ferocious serve volleyer. I guess I'll see you in the queue for tickets should it happen TV :ok:

Btw, I do hope you're as bald as Agassi, Al. With all the things that fly over your head, your hair would look a complete mess otherwise.

Yeah my full head of hair is in a mess with all the hot air from the weak era argument . ;)
Seriously I realised your comments were toungue in cheek. No-one really believes Sampras would beat Federer now . (Do they ? ) ;)

But thats not really the issue , the spectacle of two great champions playing each other again would be great to witness .

You know, I actually think Sampras would fare pretty well against some of Federers "peak" opponents - he's only 35 and his phenomenal talent won't have diminished beyond recognition...

Well, bring on the exhibition! Irrespective of what the outcome says about the relative merits of both players, the consequential arguments on who is better...just the opportunity to see legend vs. legend play would be incredible.

Does show, however, that is every era-you rarely get more than one star of cosmic proportion :D

I have to say I find it strange why Federer wouldnt reveal the score!

Not really. Fed was justing teasing everyone.. ;) Keeps everyone guessing, of course :ok:

Yes he can have a cheeky sense of humour sometimes can't he? :D It piques interest too of course.

Of course! And it's fun to keep everyone guessing with that ;)

Anyone interested in what Fed said about this practice should actually listen to the exerpt from the press conference itself. There is a link to it on the beeb site. It's clear that he's being a bit of a scamp in the nicest possible way.. The comments about him beating Sampras in his own house is even funnier when you hear him say it! :lol:

Nice discussioh here. Glad we can discuss Fed's interview without considering Fed's remarks overly arrogant. (unlike other Forums). I think it is a good thing also Fed kept the score for himself. Sampras will certainly say it when he is interviewed in turn....if he lost that is. If Sampras keeps it quiet too, then that's probably cause he won.

But if they played a set, I d be surprised if Fed lost a game. This is probably why they played a tie break as well.

refreshing style of looking at the comments on this forum...on BBC, it has spun back to Weak Era vs. Strong Era...who was GOAT... :rolleyes:

I was more thinking how lucky Sampras gardener or suchlike would have been on that day!

I like Federers approach-he comments with humour and always says enough to get the debates flying, without saying anything that could later be misconstrued in anyway.

Sara, the beeb used to be a great forum.. but it really was a case of it relying on a lot of good posters. And most people here started out on the beeb!

If it has good posters then the posters themselves pretty much do the moderating by crowding out the wums/ trolls. But then when other alternatives came up in terms of message boards a lot of people left to post elsewhere, namely here and KOC, maybe about April last year? As more people left, the worse the beeb board became, and so more people left etc etc. Downward spiral.

Unfortunately after that there were many more trolls, proportionately speaking, and the lack of moderation on the beeb board became apparent, sadly. :( I recall you saying that you liked the higher profile of the beeb board and the extra traffic that it can generate, which was a great feature. But the beeb has so many boards that the moderators really can't control it effectively. Not too much of a surprise that the thread has degenerated into the usual mud-flinging from the new set of trolls that have taken residency there.

And Fed? Ah, he is basically a diamond geezer as they say. Lovely guy, quite shy really, but articulate, very friendly and a really endearing sense of humour. Yip, i'm one of those 'Fed Worshippers'.. ;)

Very true. And you have the die-hard Sampras fan/Federer haters choking to death reading those interviews cause they can't see or appreciate the tongue-in-cheek style of Federer. Quite funny.

BTW: as I spotted out in the other (arrogant manipulated forum..the one with plenty of clay9 might be this training session is due to the following element that Pete pointed out in his SI interview of 1 month ago.

"SI: When is the last time you spoke with Federer?

Sampras: I talked to him a few days after the Open. I sent him a text to congratulate him. Then we spoke a little bit after that. We had some people who were curious about putting together an exhibition. It ended up not working out but we talked a little about the exhibition and in general. I told him, "Look, I don't know you well but want to tell you I respect your game, the way you handle yourself and that you are credit to the game."I think he gets respect from the media and the fans and I wanted him to know that I was a part of that."

Full article here

Ciao :rolleyes:

Lol. I know the one you mean ;) . You can read the most serious pundits of this forum say that Sampras would be a top 5 on hard now if he were to come back.

I've hardly posted at this forum, but if that's the kind of logical, rational discussion that is partaken over there, I might have to give it a look.

Yep, there are some v. new posters who are just offensive, repetitive and a bit pathetic...I don't mind a bit of "trolling" or people playing devils advocate as long as it remains eloquent, and isn't offensive. Some of these people don't know the first thing about tennis, just fancy a bit of mud slinging! :angry:

There may be extra traffic, but it's the new traffic is pretty poor...

I read that interview with Pete...hope he sort the "not working" part of the exhibition asap!!

thanks petalp - didn't realise there was an audio file! Federer, bless him, does sound so excited about it all - i guess when anyone gets to meet someone they look up to, they're gonna be excited. You can hear in his voice how pleased he was, and also how much respect he obviously has for Sampras.

He's obviously messing around a bit - he does appear to have a sense of humour! it would be easy to mis-construe some of those comments for arrogance, but when you actually listen to it, he's just having fun.

To me, Federer always seems nervous in press conferences and interviews - lots and lots of ummms and aaahs, and he's obviously not quite sure what to say about having a few hits with Pete. Let's hope they decide to play a charity match at some point! B)

Yes, he's certainly got more comfortable...but still seems a little nervous. I think that actually is a good facet to his character-slightly nervy, some off-key jokes.

But forget the backyard practice-stop giving Sampras/Federer fans a tantilising taster of what could be-get on with the exhibition!!!

It must be galling for the other ATP top players at times, all their news overshadowed at the news Fed and Sampras hit a few balls in Petes back garden. roflmao

hey, hang on - the other headline on the ATP site is that James Blake got a hole-in-one....... :blink: apparently it's an omen........God knows what of???? :unsure:

The think is if you stay neutral or correctly correct in an interview, it quickly becomes dull. An interview shoud lbe fun to read without of course being over the top. I thought Agassi's interviews were excellent, very intelligent guy but in a different style, I thought Ivanisevic, Safin and Federer are really good too with probably a more personal/human touch.

Oh dear, don't think Blake wants to be drawing any attention to any omens (though never heard of that, either!)...still, Federer and Sampras have seen to dominating headlines. Again!

it's possibly an omen that Blake should think of switching to golf??? :rolleyes:

Or that he'll spray balls miles out of court during his next match.

roflmao roflmao Blake in Golf right..Against Tiger..wait he is winning almost everything...Hummmm Sound like a weak era in Golf as well roflmao roflmao

Definitely Blake can move and should move to golf roflmao