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MELBOURNE, Jan 12: Pete Sampras underlined that he means business at next week’s Australian Open by beating his great rival Andre Agassi 7-6 6-7 6-3 in the Kooyong Classic final on Saturday.
Sampras played some sublime tennis to capture the title in front of 7,500 fans at the Kooyong club.
“That was the perfect preparation. Two hours out there against a great player,” Sampras said.
“We both struggled with the windy conditions but I felt I served pretty well out there.
“I feel like I am hitting the ball well, got through some pretty tough matches and am feeling great.”
Agassi, who had won the traditional warm-up event the last two years before also winning the first grand slam of the year in 2000 and 2001, had chances to retain his title but on each occasion let Sampras off the hook.
“He came up with the goods in the third set...I did not come up with the goods in the first set. That’s what happened out there,” Agassi said afterwards.
The two are seeded to meet in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open which starts Monday.
Agassi, seeded third at Melbourne Park, started the match well under bright sunshine on Kooyong’s centre court.
He broke in the very first game when Sampras nudged a volley beyond the baseline and kept the lead, hitting well from the back.
But Sampras, the Open’s eighth seed, hit back when Agassi served for the set, levelling for 5-5.
He stepped up a gear and beat Agassi in the opening tiebreak 8-6 with some incisive volleying and accurate serving.
Agassi, who trails Sampras 18-14 in head-to-head matches, played himself back into the match winning a second set tiebreak by the same score.
But a single break in the second game of the deciding set was all Sampras needed as the winner of a record 13 grand slam titles served out for the trophy 6-3 after 105 minutes.
Britain’s Greg Rusedski was forced to come from behind to win the Auckland Open on Saturday as he beat Frenchman Jerome Golmard 6-7 6-4 7-5 in just over two hours to boost his confidence ahead of the Australian Open.
Rusedski is scheduled to meet compatriot Tim Henman — the winner in Adelaide last week — in the third round of this year’s first grand slam if he gets past Australians Scott Draper and Mark Philippoussis in the first two rounds.
The Auckland final was a tense affair with just four service breaks — three of them to Rusedski — as 36th-ranked Golmard matched everything the Briton threw at him.
The players returned to the court after a three hour break for rain with Golmard trailing 6-5 in the first set.
He held serve to take the set to a tie-break and demolished Rusedski 7-0 with some delightful drop shots and passing volleys the Briton had no answer to.
So for the fifth time in the tournament the sixth-seeded Rusedski had to play a three-set match to win.
In both the quarter-final against Goran Ivanisevic and the semifinal versus Jiri Novak he had lost the first set but came back to triumph.
In the deciding set Rusedski again broke Golmard in the third game and served for the match at 5-4 but was broken.
Just as it seemed the Frenchman was about the win the mental battle Rusedski immediately broke Golmard again and then held serve to take the set 7-5.
Rusedski was the first British winner of the event since Roger Taylor in 1970.—Reuters
