Favorite Pete Sampras Match
Some of you might remember that Semifinal against Sweden in Las Vegas 1995. I recently watched it again and I really love it very much. Pete won his first match, then Agassi got injured and it was Martin's turn to get the third point and he did. So Pete's last match was a dead rubber he played against Mats Wilander. He was smiling all the time and joking and was not concentrating at all. He teased Wilander pointing at the spot to where he was going to smash, made a lot of tricky shots, threw his racket high up in the air when he missed one. He mixed a lot of double faults with aces and genius shots and was so happy that Timmy Gullikson was there too (one of his last public appearance) - he had also changed places with his brother Tom for several games and was sitting close to Pete during the breaks. Pete lost the first set 2:6 after an endless serving game and was 1:4 down in the second (in a best of three match). He obviously thought that he would not like to disappoint the crowd and Timmy and to all who had stayed there to watch. He made the break to love, saved several matchpoints at 5:6, won the tiebreaker 7:2 and the third set 6:3 - that's our Pete!! I like it so much watching a relaxed and happy Pete finally pulling himself up against a very motivated Wilander who played pretty great tennis that day.
