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Posted on: May 07th, 2007

Sampras Wins His First Senior Event

- petepage

May 7, 2007

BOSTON (AP) - For Pete Sampras, it was a day to live dangerously.

First, the future Hall of Famer faced a triple match point against Todd Martin in the final of the Champion's Cup event at Boston University on Sunday. Then, between beating Martin and grabbing the first-prize check of $50,000, Sampras shared some bad news with the Red Sox [team stats] fans in the crowd.

"I don't know if you guys heard, but I believe the New York Yankees just signed Roger Clemens," Sampras said during the trophy ceremony as the crowd of 3,560 erupted in boos. "I'm serious."

On the day that the 35-year-old Sampras made a successful return on the seniors tour, another old-timer announced that he would be making a comeback that was much less welcome in Boston. Clemens, 44, said during the seventh-inning stretch at Yankee Stadium that he chose New York over the Red Sox for his latest comeback.

The fans at Agganis Arena probably missed the news while watching Sampras play Martin. So Sampras, a Dodgers fan, took the opportunity to tweak them.

"I'm just having fun," Sampras said after the match. "You know what, it's not that fun in this town. It's like a religion. I've never seen anything like it. They're passionate (in Los Angeles), but I've never seen anything like it is here."

Sampras hadn't played competitive tennis since winning the 2002 U.S. Open for his record 14th Grand Slam title. Retired at 31, he didn't pick up a racket or watch tennis on television for almost three years before deciding to play a limited schedule of exhibitions and Champion's Cup events.

His presence was a coup for the seniors tour and reminder for his opponents - Petr Korda, Tim Mayotte, John McEnroe and Martin - of why he dominated the regular tour when they were in their prime.

"Adding Sampras has certainly added some extra buzz," said Jim Courier, a competitor and organizer of the tour. "There's no question that when you bring in 14 major titles in one body, it's going to get tougher."

In a nod to the players knees, the matches are best-of-two sets, with a 10-point tiebreaker in case they split the sets. Sampras won the first set 6-3 and it was 5-5 in the second when Martin broke Sampras' serve, then held serve to tie it.

"I was thoroughly unprepared for a lot of what he had to offer," said Martin, the winner of last year's Boston event. "The only recourse I had was to turn it into a tennis match rather than a skills test, because his skills are better than mine."

Trailing 9-6, Sampras won five consecutive points. Martin was serving for the victory at 9-8 when he hit a backhand - a "pretty easy" one, Sampras said - into the net; Sampras took the victory at 11-9 when Martin returned a serve wide.

"Athletically, he's still closer to the speed he was when he was competing. The rest of us have depreciated more," Martin said. "I hit a few shots today, but I was reacting 9 times out of 10, if not 19 times out of 20."

Sampras had been doing his best to stay in shape playing 3-on-3 basketball twice a week in Los Angeles with friends, including former tour player Alex O'Brien. Beach volleyball and golf have also kept him busy when he wasn't chasing his two kids, 1 1/2 and 4 1/2, around the house.

But now that he's back on the court, he plans to make a few appearances - not the entire seven-event tour - including Athens in two weeks. "I'm excited about taking my folks there, being a Greek-American," Sampras said.

Sampras went 3-0 in the round-robin before beating Martin in the final. McEnroe beat Courier 6-2, 6-3 in the consolation match.

Even so, the others were glad to have Sampras around.

"I think it adds a tremendous amount of legitimacy to what we're doing out here to have somebody who still plays at that level," Martin said. "For me, it's great to know that the best player in our era still wants to compete, still wants to beat me."

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