Sampras, Agassi, Courier, McEnroe @ HSBC Cup Los Angeles

Written by: Staff on 15th October 2011

Sampras, Agassi, Courier, McEnroe @ HSBC Cup Los Angeles |

I believe I just had a tennis experience that tops watching Roger Federer live in person. I got to watch the 1992 USA Davis Cup Champion team duke it out front row at Staples Center. That’s not even the highlight of my night!

I hung out this morning at Westwood Sports where I get my customary lunch to prepare for eventful days. I picked up Serena William’s cracked racket which she had used (and cracked) during her US Open loss to Sam Stosur in the finals. That was pretty cool. I also picked up Pete Sampras’ racket which had just been freshly strung and expected to be used later in the night at the event. It’s still heavy as ever! Anyway, I arrived at Staples at about 3pm, got my digi cameras ready, and prepared myself for a very unique and fun event. I watched Sampras and McEnroe do their VIP Clinic for about 45 minutes, took a few pictures. 5:15pm there was a press conference on court (old school style with McEnroe stretching in front of us). Question were fired off quickly from media representatives ranging from magazines, newspapers, and television companies. I felt like I was swallowed up by a huge wave as I was pushed to the very back of the pack of media hounds. John had a few thoughts about the state of tennis right now as well as the Champions tour events. He respects Djokovic’s run this year, but does not count out his idol – Rod Laver – in the discussion and believes it is because of Rod’s 2 Grand Slam years that he is still considered to have the best years ever! A follow-up question posed as to how he’d compare Djokovic’s to his 1984 year. John responded with a chuckle at the end: “Tops mine, slightly tops Roger’s too. On second thought, doesn’t top mine!” He was intimate in his responses, he looked reporters dead in the eye. When I sacked up at asked about the court surfaces these days, John looked me dead in the face and calmly responded: “There’s always been this debate, but the players who like slower courts are going to say the courts are too fast. The players who like to play on fast courts say the courts are too slow.” Thus putting an end to my train of thought. I was a little scared but then a more interesting question of, “What’s the greatest shot in tennis ever?” was asked. He quickly responded: “Pete’s serve, it’s not just the power, it’s the placement, and he can go for it on second serves.” Another interesting thought John had was when the question of money in professional tennis could be boosted. John mentioned a partnership between all the majors as well as scheduling changes to allow more money to flow evenly throughout the tour. John’s opinion of why there haven’t been American stars winning slams is because he believes: “Athletes around the world have gotten better, hungrier. And you know tennis is an expensive sport, there are good American athletes out there but they’re not picking up rackets.”

After John McEnroe, Courier graced us media folk. He said the American public had been spoiled with so many champions through the past twenty years and believes that there is a cycle to it. It’s important to Courier to stay close to the sport as well as include the other legends on hand tonight in events such as the HSBC Cup. “If you look around, you’ll mostly see people who followed us during our careers and then their children in order to give them the same type of experience watching us play tennis that they had.” I asked Jim Courier: “Who are your top pics in terms of up and coming American talent (ATP)?” Courier looked me dead in the face as well, calmly said, “With Donald Young’s results lately and his run at Thailand, I think he has potential to get into the top 20. We have very raw players out there, who need more experience, but are exceptional athletes. Of course I’m talking about Ryan Harrison and Jack Sock. Jack Sock is just starting his professional career so it’s going to be interesting to see how he does.” I was pretty stoked with my experience at Staples so far but then Pete and Andre came to us.

This was the toughest moment yet for me. On court, Pete was standing there, alone. Andre was off the court talking with a reporter. Everyone rushed to Andre because they didn’t see Pete! I also followed to take a few photos of Agassi and listen to what he was telling the reporter. He was so soft spoken, it was almost Zen-like to hear him speak. He was talking about former injuries he had sustained on tour when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Pete still standing alone the court! I took my opportunity, boldly walking up to my idol. He looked me in the eye and I could swear he remembered me from our practice session over a year ago, but unfortunately he did not bring it up. His game face was on for the media and although I exchanged pleasantries, he still didn’t remember. Oh well. I had a one on one with Pete Sampras with a simple plastic court guard between us. I could’ve wrapped my arm around the guy for crying out loud. As soon as I started talking to Pete, 3 cameras rushed around me and focused on our conversation. Okay okay, here’s what we talked about: I asked about the Champions Tour and how it was treating him and the players’ bodies. He replied, eye contact was dead on, that the east coast trip had been pretty rough for him. But that the west coast trip, up to Seattle where he was born, was great because he got time to spend with family. Of course Los Angeles is Pete’s hometown so it was great to be back playing in front of great fans at home too. So Vegas won’t be too bad either. I asked him about the court surface at Staples because they basically just laid down some kind of rebound ace surface over the wood basketball flooring. Pete said there were a few tough spots, dead spots in particular, but he couldn’t blame it because it had taken grounds crews only a few hours to set the court up, so it wasn’t a big deal. I started to panic at this point because I am 23 years old interviewing my childhood idol. I can’t tell you how many videos and replays I’ve watched of Sampras growing up, molding my game to play like him, and admiring everything he did on court. But anyway, I came up with some spontaneous questions like: Who’s your pick for the World Tour Finals this year? He said quickly, “Roger, on that fast court, I think Roger is going to take it.” I liked his response because it was very confident. Score: Roger: 1, Djokovic: 0. I then asked his opinion of Djokovic’s year. Pete said: “One of the best years ever, to beat Roger so many times and then Nadal 6 times in a row, that’s incredible. I tried to dig deeper, so I asked, what do you think of Djokovic’s CVAC Chamber that he sleeps in? Pete smiled, “If it helps him mentally, then sure why not do it? I’d do it. I don’t know if it works physically but if it calms him down mentally, why not?” I asked if he still felt nerves out here, before I even finished my question, Pete said: “Nah, done this a few times before, thanks.” At this point he was swarmed by every reporter and camera that was originally on Andre and I froze. I looked over and saw Andre sparsely populated. Pete joked with everyone and answered the mobs’ questions. He mentioned how black and white the game used to be, how there were no guaranteed contracts, weren’t the television revenues or tons of sponsorships. He has no complaints about his career or the money he made. I asked him about the ATP surfaces after he talked about his game style and how there are no longer any serve and volleyers around. He gave me a very long answer that I’ll condense. “I don’t buy it, the courts are the same, but the styles are different. I don’t think you can do anything to change the grass. It’s the style of play.” I followed up with, “Did you find it difficult to get used to the ball changes that occur tournament to tournament? Pete responded, “Yeah, didn’t like it. It was interesting, you play all season to get ready for Wimbledon or US Open, and you use a certain ball, then you play it and all of a sudden it’s a different ball. The balls play a huge part of our spot. Some balls fly a little bit, some are softer, you would like to have the tour sort of be more organized going into a Slam with having the same ball going into the Grand Slam.”

Safe to say at this point I was frazzled and not sure what to do next. I did what I do best, I observed. I had my time to shine, I wanted to listen, not hear, what Pete had to say. A more experienced reporter from Inside tennis started asking about hypothetically playing Wimbledon again, the next generation of American players, how spoiled the American public is, etc. Things we had heard before. Although Pete did say he is glad he is retired, he knows he can still hold serve out there. I left the press conference as the players were ushered back into the locker room. Pete was willing to stay longer but the head of operations reprimanded a few of the reporters and halted all questions. I went back to the media room, a dark and lonesome place, where I uploaded some pictures to my laptop, took some notes, and charged up my batteries. As I finished, I realized, this sucks, I should not be cooped up in this room with these files. There are legends outside this door and down the hallway, I had seen Pete and Mac immediately as I had walked into the building for crying out loud, before their VIP Clinic session and everything around 4pm! So I packed up my gear, and proceeded to walk around. No sooner had I been denied entrance to the locker room and production room area which i had just been in an hour before, I ran into Pete’s manager. He pleaded with me to help him with something and I said sure! He sent me to the officials room to help with stringing. Andre Agassi’s rackets needed help, and boy was I glad I had spent so much time in Westwood Sports. The first racket had come off the stringer but it had taken too long. I grabbed the reins and began to string the second one. At first I rushed, nervous, not comfortable in my nice shoes. I kicked them off, shoe-less, I strung Agassi’s racket in 30 minutes. Wait just a second, Jim Courier’s was up next, did I just inherit the coolest job ever? These guys were due on court in minutes! I had no time to waste, I started stringing Courier’s racket! It was a blend string job, two different strings going into it. As I finished the main strings, disaster struck. I tied the knot to finish the mains, and it snapped where the grommet was sharp unfortunately. Great, I just messed up and Courier was due on court pretty soon. I backed up the string job, tied it off one main string early, and then proceeded to put the cross string material into the main, starting from the bottom of the racket. I looped it through the top and finished the crosses just in time to send the racket to Jim to allow him time to stencil it with his Donnay logo. It looked kind of funny because his mains were all one color, except one, and that one matched all of his cross strings. Oh well, I did what I could and I knew it wouldn’t matter, these guys are pros, they hit every ball in the center of the string bed anyway! A little ingenuity got me pretty far today.. Let’s see where else it took me!

I got upgraded to front row seats instead of row 20 media pass seats. I love the “Wise-guy code”. You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours! I watched Agassi vs McEnroe first. I exchanged some banter with Agassi as he played with the crowd, that was cool. Agassi handled McEnroe in the end, and I was loving life. I’ll soon have my HD videos up on my youtube channel soon, stay tuned… Next, Sampras and Courier came out to play. And these guys didn’t hold back, they didn’t waste time or appeal to the crowd, it was strictly time to play good tennis. They exchanged a lot of good rallies and superb shot-making. It was so much fun. At one point, Courier hit a running forehand passing shot that was so clean everyone rose to their feet, including me. Luckily Jim was running towards me and he raised up his hand which I then high-fived, look for it on television, a friend of mine told me he saw me! hahaha Anyway, it was the most entertaining match of the night with the highest quality of tennis on display. The crowd loved it. Pete came away the victor in the tie breaker, took a short break after post-match interviews, and found himself in the final against Agassi.

The two squared off and started well. Legends, the rivalry was renewed as clips of their previous battles in the 90s blared atop the Staples Center big screens and loud speakers. Pete broke serve first, but appeared to suffer an injury. During his medical timeout of court, the cutest exchange between Agassi and a ball girl ensued. Agassi hit balls with her until she missed and she got a great ovation for her efforts. She passed the racket onto another kid, named Joey who then to everyone’s surprise, beat agassi two points in a row! Every time he struck the ball, the crowd Oo’d and Ah’d. Agassi went along with it as a gentlemen, although when they started the 3rd point as Pete had returned and acted as a ball boy for Joey, throwing him the ball in the same gesture as ball kids do, Agassi blasted a serve that clipped the tape. Everyone could see it was too hard of a serve to hit to the young lad but it was all in good fun as everyone gave Joey an almost standing O! Pete returned and from that moment on the match was more of a slap fest because movement had been taken out of the equation. Pete held on and did what he does best, hold serve to clinch the HSBC Cup.

During Pete’s second injury time out, I asked his manager if I could come to Vegas tomorrow to join their circus and help out at the Champions Event there. He said yes. At about 10:00pm I booked a one-way ticket on my smartphone that leaves Los Angeles Airport at 7:30am. It’s about 1:20am right now as I write this so I have a few hours to catch some sleep before I have to drive to LAX and catch my flight. I’m missing a ton of details here and I’m sure to update you soon on the things I’m forgetting to tell you, I haven’t eaten since about 2:00pm, almost 12 hours ago. But I’ve never been so amped and excited as I was tonight. I mean, it literally was one of the best nights of my life. I’ve sat in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, watched Federer play live against Berdych there in the Quarterfinals of the 2010 Championships… I can honestly say, the way the players behaved towards me personally during the media session, played great in front of huge crowds, and excited the imaginations of all the young people present at the event, I had a better time tonight than when I watched Federer. You may have had a different experience but tonight, I think I was very lucky. I just want to send a thank you to everyone who was kind enough to support and lead me through today. I couldn’t have done it without my friends. This kind of experience is something special and I’ll always cherish it.

Jumping on a spontaneous last-minute flight in 6 hours for the Champions Series Event in Las Vegas, Nevada,

Shubert