Passion for Pete Sampras
I can remember exactly the first time that I saw Pete play tennis. Brooke Shields owns a house up here where I live. She and her mom came in shopping at the store last year (1999) and started talking about her and her recent divorce to Andre Agassi. A week later the final of the Mercedes-Benz Cup in L.A. featuring Pete and Andre was being televised on our local station. I was watching it because of Andre but I fell in love with Pete. Tennis always seemed so boring before but watching Pete play changed all of that. I loved the way he did his Air Sampras the best but his serve was great, his running forehand was awesome and he seemed to be really enjoying himself. I started thinking that hey this isn't so bad. I watched a few matches after that and was back to my "oh this is boring thing" again until I saw Pete play in Cincy and it I felt great again. I started watching other players and comparing them to Pete. Some stacked up pretty good but others were just horrible. I find myself running to the TV now whenever tennis is on no matter if I like the players or not. I buy everything I can find to do with Pete. Its really very strange because if you would have asked me a year ago if I liked tennis I would have told you that you were nuts. If not for Pete I would not even be here talking now.