You gotta read this - Roger 1st among equals

Check out this superb post from Rob York from the Bleacher Report. He looks at how Roger's years of domination - in which every season he achieved more than Sampras at his best - have now been replaced by a new era in which Federer is first among equals.

And there's a bold prediction. Roger to win Wimbledon and the US and re-capture the No 1 spot! You can read it here.

all of which is a nice excuse for a video of the master at work...

Sampras to play in London

The Tour of Champions has lost its way in recent years. It used to be a great event, largely due to the enduring appeal of seeing John McEnroe play.

But being less choosy about who can enter has taken the shine off the event. McEnroe is a still a class act but finds it increasingly tough to compete with the younger, fitter, but less interesting journeymen the organisers have admitted in the last couple of years.

This has deprived the event of its PR ‘big shout’. The original USP was to watch legends from yesterday battle it out. But the reaction from most punters to a Paul Haarhuis v Guy Forget final is "Paul who?"

Which is why the announcement yesterday that Pete Sampras will be competing at this December's event at the Albert Hall is such a coup.

Because unlike many of the players who have made up the numbers in the last couple of years Sampras is of course, a true great.

Lets hope this is the beginning of something special. It would be fantastic if some of the other greats from the Sampras generation – Agassi, Becker, Chang – also signed up.

Great moments in tennis No 8 – Becker calls it a day

Centre Court Wimbledon, July 1997. Boris Becker, darling of the Wimbledon crowd for more than 10 years, is defeated by Pete Sampras in the quarter finals. Becker then stole the show by surprising Sampras, and the rest of the world, and announcing his retirement with immediate effect.

At the net at the end of the match Becker congratulated his old rival on his victory and then said ''This was it for me; this was my last match at Wimbledon and I'm glad it was against you.''

It was a classy way to call time on a great career. The game itself was a bit of a disappointment. The previous year the two men had served up a classic 5 setter in the final of the end of season Masters Cup, with Sampras eventually breaking Becker in the fifth set, after Boris held serve for 27 consecutive games.

Unfortunately, Becker couldn’t push Sampras as close at Wimbledon, with Sampras winning comfortably. You can read The New York Times match report and Becker tribute here And you can watch Sampras close out the match below with a combination of his famous second serve, and his serve volleying.

Federer hires new coach for clay season

The word is Jose Higueras will be working with Federer during the clay season. Higueras has coached a number of great players over the years, including three former French Open Champions Courier, Chang and Bruguera, as well as Sampras. Hat tip to Go to tennis who has the story here.

Photo © Paulo Maria/ProTENIS, Portugal

Sampras and Federer to play Wimbledon

A couple of the answers in Federer's word association (favourite tournament and dream doubles player) got me thinking.

And so I'm going to make another prediction: Sampras and Federer will play doubles at Wimbledon.

It's unlikely to be this year - Roger won't want anything to disrupt his plans to win a record sixth consecutive title - and in fact it may not be for another four or five years.

But given the mutual respect and the fun they've had over the past year in the exhibitions I think they'd both get a lot out of doubles. And it would give both them a chance to add another Slam to their records.

You heard it here first!!

Word association with Federer

As part of the build up for the Indian Wells semi Sky Sport did a form of word association with Federer. Roger was asked a series of rapid fire questions by Mark Petchey.

Here's the highlights:

* Favourite tournament: Wimbledon

* Toughest opponent: Nadal

* Favourite womens player: Hingis

* All time sports hero: Becker

* Best match you've been involved in: Sampras at Wimbledon 2001

* Favourite shot: forehand

* Any superstitions: none

* If you could play doubles with anyone who would it be: Sampras

* If you weren't a tennis player what would you be: A football player

Is it the end for Safin?

Marat Safin has a unique place in tennis history as the only man to beat both Federer and Sampras in Grand Slam events and then win the tournaments. Sampras in New York in 2000, Federer in Melbourne in 2005. Neither performance was a fluke.

The “future of tennis” (according to Pete Sampras) was also World No 1 for 9 weeks in 2000, and is a two time Davis Cup winner. But Safin has never fully realised that potential and has often been let down by his body and his head. All too often he has succumbed to both injuries and a tendency of beating himself on court by losing his cool.

For the past year he has been toiling away outside the top 40 and only this week was dumped out of Indian Wells in the first round. His decline underlines how difficult it can be to turn it around once you start to slide down the rankings.

Safin – like plenty of fallen champions before him – finds himself in the classic catch 22. You need ranking points to earn a seeding for the major tournaments, but to accumulate rankings points you need to go deep in tournaments, and this can be tough if you are unseeded.

His draw at this year’s Australian Open is the perfect illustration of how challenging it can be. He came up against former finalist Baghdatis in the second round and was beaten in four. Had he beaten Baghdatis he would have played Hewitt in the next round, and then Djokovic in the 4th round. Had he beaten the eventual champion his reward would have been a semi with Federer.

At 28 Safin has to ask himself does he have what it takes to get his career back on track? I hope the answer is yes - after all Agassi famously did it at a similar age - but life is not getting any easier for Marat as he comes up against a new generation of younger, fitter and hungrier players.

Great moments in tennis No 5 – the King is dead, long live the King

All the buzz around this week’s exhibition between Sampras and Federer made me dig out the footage from their one and only game on tour, the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001.

It was a 5 set classic with Federer edging it 7-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-7, 7-5 in his first appearance on Centre Court. At the time it was a big upset - Sampras was seeking his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title, and eighth in nine years - but with hindsight we now know it was one great champion reluctantly passing the baton onto another.

The result has been suggested by some as being the answer to the question, who is the greatest of the two legends? I'm a Federer fan (and my vote's with Roger everytime) but I don’t think this match settles the debate.

Largely because neither man was at their peak. Sampras was in decline – even if he did go onto win the US the following year – and at 19 Federer was not yet the finished article - he lost to Henman in the next round, something which is sadly unimaginable now.

The Classic Match has a nice write up and The Guardian’s match report is worth a read.

And Thanks to Steffanofanderoger you can watch the highlights of the thrilling fifth set here, including Federer fighting hard to hold serve, and then breaking serve to signal an end to an era.

Sampras is not Rocky

Talking of guilty pleasures I've always had a soft spot for the Rocky films. In Rocky 4 we see Rocky coming out of a comfortable retirement to risk it all against Drago, a younger, taller, stronger opponent. And would you believe it, against all odds, Rocky beats Drago.

Back in tennis world the Pete Samprass comeback bandwagon gathers pace. Last Autumn Samprass played three exhibition matches with Federer, including the game in Macau which Sampras won 6 and 4.

Last week Sampras beat Tommy Haas in an exhibition, and on March 10 we have another Sampras v Federer game at Madison Square Garden.

Kamakshi and Steve on the ESPN blog have five reasons for and five reasons against a comeback. Elsewhere Tennis Fanantic would like Pete to give it a shot.

My view is the mens tour is no movie and Sampras (great as he was) is not Rocky.

There are more than 100 super fit guys itching to take down a legend. In the unlikely event that Sampras does risk his reputation it's hard to see his body lasting a full season. Instead he'd have to cherry pick events (Wimbledon, the US, some of the masters).

But of course he wouldn't be seeded and so could find himself up against Federer, Nadal, Djokovic (or Murray, Tsonga, or Davydenko, the list goes on) in round one or two.

I just can't see Sampras risking his pride or reputation.

Great moments in tennis No 4 - Agassi completes career slam

How do you measure greatness? Is it the number of slams a player wins? How they win them? Completing the near mythical calendar Grand Slam? How they respond to adversity and setbacks? A Champion's complete domination of the game? The impact a player has on tennis? Or the number of new people they attract into the game?

The answer of course is all of the above and then some.

Andre Agassi was a true Great. The number of slams he won ("only" 8 - what most players would give for a fraction of that success) probably denies him the title of The Greatest of All Time (GOAT).

But I would argue that he was an even greater player that his arch rival Pete Sampras. Sure, Pistol Pete won 6 more Slams but where Andre has the edge over Sampras, McEnroe, Borg, and (for the time being at least) Federer is his 'Career Grand Slam', winning all 4 of the main events between 1992 and 1999.

Unlike Laver he didn't do it in the course of one season - which I guess is still the ultimate test for any candidate to be GOAT - but of course what Agassi did do was complete his Slam on 4 different surfaces.

He completed the set in Paris in 1999 with victory over Andrei Medvedev in the French Open final. True to form Agassi didn't do it the easy way. In fact he had to claw it back from 2 sets to love to win in 5.

You can watch the final moments of the match along with the post match reaction here