Strange Bedfellows

Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras have had many encounters in their long tennis careers. For the most part, these interactions have been professional and without rancor. But to almost anyone that watches tennis over the years, it is clear they were not, and are not, the best of buddies.

Andre, as we all know, recently released a book. He also released a lot of information about himself, which perplexes most of us, especially with the timing. Was his need to “come clean” so weighting that he just had to do his confessional? I mean, where has that need been prior to this? Or was there some third party that was forcing his hand somehow? Anyway, I’m off track a little bit. In his book, Andre takes a couple shots at Pete. One was about how cheap he was, and still is I guess. This so-called fact was based on how little Sampras tips at restaurants.

So they lined up for the Hit for Haiti charity event at Indian Wells in mid March. They were matched up with Nadal and Federer in doubles, all for charity. Now admittedly this is a fun match, but Sampras, still stinging from the book references, was imitating Andre’s ding-toed walk between serves. These imitation skits are the invention of Novak Djokovic, who is darn funny and good at it. I think Pete was just getting into to fun aspect of the match and poking fun at Andre good naturedly. But Andre retaliated with “I don’t have any money”, an obvious slam at Pete and his cheap ways. Later, Sampras bombed a serve at Andre, which was sort of funny, except it really seemed there was a message in that offering. Seems like Pete is saying, dude, you are over the line with your tell all stuff. If Agassi was a baseball player, he could expect the high hard one on his next at bat.

I still have to wonder what Agassi was trying to accomplish with the stuff about Pete. Being second fiddle to Pete all those years (thru Agassi’s own lack of professionalism early in his career) maybe has just finally put him over the top, and he is sick of the “great Pete Sampras” stories and image as built by the media.

An awkward sidebar to all this action was Nadal and Federer, who kind of stood around helplessly and uncomfortably. Rafa said zip and just smiled thru it all. Roger, being the gentleman he is, tried to joke about it, which didn’t work because at that point, both Pete and Andre had messages to get out to each other. Strange forum this was, and certainly not as fun loving as either would like us to believe.

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