Posted on: June 12th, 2009
Sampras and Agassi to Duel in Macao
- petepageHONG KONG June 12, 2009 - One of the great sports rivalries of the last decade will resume later this year in Macao, when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi go head to head once again on Sunday, Oct. 25.
Yes, October. The event -– billed as the Venetian Macao Tennis Showdown 2009 -– will take place at the Venetian casino, on the Cotai Strip, and tickets have already gone on sale for the event.
Agassi and Sampras will take court at the 15,000-seater CotaiArena, with prices ranging from 280 Macanese patacas to 980 patacas (about $35 to $122).
Sampras and Agassi clashed 34 times throughout their long careers, with Sampras winning 20 of the meetings. But this is the first time they have faced off against each other since the final of the 2002 U.S. Open, which Sampras won in four sets, 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, just before announcing his retirement.
The pair have had many memorable clashes and have each said that the other was his toughest opponent. The serve-volleyer Sampras won 64 professional singles titles, while the baseliner Agassi won 60. They formed an integral part of a glorious generation of American tennis that also included Michael Chang and Jim Courier.
The exhibition match in October will be just two sets, with a 10-point tie breaker to settle the contest if they split sets.
The event will start with a match between two juniors, the Indian player Yuki Bhambri, 16, the current top junior in the world, and the American teenager Ryan Harrison, 17. They will play a 45-minute match of singles, followed by the Agassi-Sampras singles match.
The juniors will then partner the former stars for a set of doubles. They will draw to see who partners whom at a “Meet the Players” press conference the day before the event. No prizes for guessing Harrison’s preferred partner – he cites Sampras as his favorite player, and says he too hopes to be ranked number one in the world.
The Venetian casino has been setting up big-name sports events and concerts in a bid to lure Hong Kongers and visitors over to Macao. This is the third year for a tennis showdown — Sampras played in Macao in 2007, beating Roger Federer 7-6, 6-4, while Federer took on Rafael Nadal last year.
The Venetian Macao is on the Cotai Strip (Estrada da Baia de Nosa Senhora da Esperança, Taipa, Macao; 853-2882-8888). Because of the size of the court, only around 11,000 seats are available for the tennis matches in the CotaiArena. Tickets for the tennis event are available, with a maximum of six per person, via the Web site. The Venetian says around half of the tickets have sold so far.
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