Sampras on the Senior Tour
After lying low for several years following his retirement, Pete Sampras returned to competitive tennis the past couple years. Sampras has played in various “Senior Tour” events such as those on the Outback Champions Series and Black Rock Masters, as well as exhibition matches against Roger Federer in Asia and in New York City in front of a sold out audience at Madison Square Garden. This past weekend, Sampras returned to
London for the first time since he lost at Wimbledon in 2002. Playing in the Black Rock Masters at Royal Albert Hall, Sampras beat John McEnroe and then lost a tightly contested match to Frenchman, Cedric Pioline. It was the first time that Sampras lost to Pioline dating back to their matches on the ATP Tour. It’s terrific to see former champions such as Sampras back playing tennis tournaments again. As Sampras has said, he doesn’t play simply to “compete”, but rather he plays “to win.” John McEnroe has lost some matches on the Senior Tour the past few years, but he tends to be competing against players who are much younger. For a former champion who is used to winning most of his matches, it has to be challenging for Sampras to lose matches that he used win when he was Number One. Clearly, Sampras can still play very compelling tennis. However, it will be interesting to see how much and how long Sampras, who is very competitive by nature, plays on the Senior Tour if he starts to lose a few more matches.
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