It’s been sixteen years, just about, but it still registers as a defining moment in the game of tennis. A bold new talent appeared on the scene. This one was especially sweet and we all recognized it. My partner and I were watching the just-concluded final of the U.S. Open which newcomer Pete Sampras had won. It was his first of fourteen Grand Slams. We remembered the comment from the booth, Dick Enberg said it, I believe, something like, “Folks, here’s the future of American tennis.”

Well, he certainly nailed that one correctly. We could all sense the vibe that day, this kid will be the True Blue, a guy for all seasons. He was going to be a great champion and there were no two ways about it.

Now the pistol-packing Pete is back. Sort of. The news of Mr. Sampras’ return to the game occurred several weeks ago but people are still digesting it. The man feels the bug again, and this is a good thing. But not to resurrect his career on the ATP tour, he’s made that very clear, he wants to play team tennis.

Team tennis? Hhmmm, that’s what I said to myself, with some surprise. What is surprising is that Pete Sampras was a champion who retired with all the big questions answered. Well, nearly all, except his inability to win the French. But his footprints are everywhere else in tennis. Pete took a good long swig at all the tennis world could offer, and he picked about the most ideal moment to go out, right after winning his home country’s tournament for the 6th time. Why would he ever care to pick up a racquet again, let alone come back, after all that?

This would mark something of a change in how Sampras chooses to display himself as a public person. He has been “above the fray” often as a tennis persona, something of a mystery. Robert Redford once said that the actor needs in, some respects, to hug his craft close to his chest, you want the mystery to always be there in your work. Once I read someone describing Pete as too “opaque” to be a really popular champion. He did have that reserve about him, and it seemed to shield him from being more accessible. So in a way it is good he wants to get back out on court with a different take on things.

But here’s the problem I have with Team Tennis and someone of the caliber of Pete Sampras playing it. It’s like taking this tremendous talent, akin to Niagara Falls, and pouring it into a thimble. I mean, Team Tennis is not the gut-wrenching affair that ATP tennis can be. We’re trying to re-invent Pete for the Common Man. I am not sure I like this, or will be able to watch it. Team Tennis is a more gregarious kind of thing from the regular tour, with a different emphasis. It might be more fun to watch, in a way, but do we feel the same competitive zeal? I’m shuddering already, and I really don’t want to. Someone help me down off my dilemma.

In film school, my teachers told us writers and directors to construct stories where the characters have a lot at stake. This is how you hook your audience and keep them. What’s at stake about Pete Sampras playing Team Tennis?

Tennis is a unique sport, one of the more idiosyncratic of all the individual sports out there. You see the athlete all the time, they are not covered in padding, armor or otherwise, obscured from view. You get to see their charming faces. Faces from across the globe, nowadays. You get a feel for them and their little quirks. God help me, I find myself missing Marcelo Rios some days. Not many. But some. Seeing the quirks on display makes for a particular player’s game, which makes for our happiness as spectators. Can the idiosyncrasies of Pete’s game shine forth in the venue of Team Tennis? This remains to be seen.

Pete handled himself well, I appreciated and admired how he went about his career. He could make the tough personal choices it must take to stay atop the field for as long as he did. He carved his own calm and poised style into that framework. So this is why team tennis seems like a completely different tangent for me to digest.

Athletes who retire are not an enviable lot. They’ve been in such a whirlwind for so long of playing and touring and touring and playing and trying to have something like a private life along the way, that when the merry-go-round finally stops, as indeed it must, it can often feel like a jarring thing. Suddenly you are out of the game and you are only early 30’s-something, what’s a boy to do with the rest of his time? What’s life going to be like for the next thirty some years?

For me it’s surprising to ponder that Pistol Pete may be bored. But that may be what this boils down to.

Pete wants to smack a few more balls around it seems, he is speaking of this as something “fun” that he now wants to partake of. Just having fun out there on a court, what a novel idea for a guy who was probably the most disciplined player of our time. I grew up hanging out with swimmers and swam a great deal myself, so the idea of just jumping in a pool and playing around is a novel idea. Especially when you’ve been trudging up and down lap lanes for years on end, logging thousands of yards. The notion of play gets lost in the shuffle sometimes.

Did Pete take a hint from his two young sons? Did he say, “Well if they can have fun, why can’t I?” Hey, maybe we give the guy an A just for thinking like this, how outside the box is that?

So how would Pete do once he’s back in the fray? Recently, tennis player and blogger Justin Gimelstob reported on playing with Sampras, and Justin was impressed by how strong his game still appeared. The serve and volleys were still very sharp, as was the cross court forehand. This after only a handful of times Pete has stepped on court since his retirement.

So a lot of the game is still there. Now, some people on the internet are feeling encouraged enough that they think Pete should come back on the regular ATP tour. That is not what he has said he wants, and I would tend to doubt that he would hanker to play on the regular tour.

But somewhere in the mix of whatever it is bringing Pete back, I cannot help but wonder if he wants to stay close to Federer. Not that they will ever meet again head to head, it’s too late for that now. But Pete has no doubt followed the drumbeat about Roger and how touted he is. Maybe Pete wants to throw a casual reminder of sorts, that before the Fed there was the Pistol, and don’t you forget it. Has anyone else picked up on the fact both guys are Leos? Born four days apart from each other. Not only do they walk the walk, they feel themselves kings of their walks. Another similarity they share is that both faltered for a time after their first big moment on the tennis stage. Sampras languished without winning a major tournament for several years after he won that first U.S. Open. And much later in his career, he suffered an absolute dissection at the hands of a teenage Federer at Wimbledon in 2001. But then Roger needed several years after that to catch up to himself, so to speak.

But if Team Tennis gets boring, maybe Pete should think of signing onto Jim Courier’s new Senior Tour sponsored by Outback Steakhouse. They might provide him – and us – with more of the taste of the Sampras of old. And along with Pete, we’d all get another look at that Master of Idiosyncrasies himself, Mr. Rios, who is currently atop the elders’ tour.

Sampras is 2-0 against Rios, but they have been very very close matches. I for one would pay to see them again, “seniors” or not. As for the Team Tennis thing, let’s wait and see.

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People are still dressing more warmly than usual in the desert this week at Indian Wells, but at least the tennis has been hot. Real hot, in fact, and we might even say that this tournament – spread out nearly over two weeks – is practically another American Grand Slam event to go along with the Open in September. Nearly all the “big” men are here at this tournament, and a lot of the top women as well. They don’t play best of five sets, but the finalists will, so it is very like a slam in that respect.

And to think there was some question about whether Indian Wells would continue in future years as a tournament. Rumors were floating that it might be moved to Shanghai, or another port of call where the prize money might be more sustainable. Billie Jean King and Pete Sampras reportedly put up their own money to keep the tournament here in the desert.

Which is good news, because this has been a great tournament so far, even better than the Australian Open. By the time the ESPN network started its broadcasts during the second week, we saw on the first “real” day of the tournament a rather spectacular array of lineups: Andy Murray had the misfortune to meet Nikolay Davydenko, and Lleyton Hewitt struggled a bit with a re-emerged Rainer Schuettler, who plays a style very similar to Hewitt’s.

But the classic opening day match was Carlos Moya going down to Marat Safin, 6-7(4),6-3,6-4. As the score would indicate, this was the bravura match of the early rounds, extremely well played . But did we see it on ESPN? No, even though it was promised on the ATP schedule for Sunday afternoon. But Messrs. Moya and Safin never emerged, and so one of the early gems went down the tubes. Sadly, the Tennis Channel has not infiltrated my neighborhood yet. And because it’s a match with a Spaniard and a Russian, do our networks care even if they did show tennis on that Sunday?

The Pleasant Surprises:

Paradorn Srichaphan is having a great tournament, after some rather lackluster months, and dare we say years, slipping further into the doldrums. He has climbed his way over an interesting assortment of guys: Robby Ginepri in the first round, Juan Carlos Ferrero in the second. Today he upset David Nalbandian, the highest seed at number 4 to exit in the tournament so far, until number 3 Andy Roddick followed him out a short while later. Nalbandian had not played since Australia. While Paradorn looked ultra buff in his blue body shirt and black shorts, Nalbandian looked out of shape. I have criticized him for not keeping his conditioning up more. But you could not help but make comparisons out there today. Paradorn faces a tough test in the quarters, against Marat Safin most likely.

The other pleasant surprise, and I find it odd to confess to this guilty pleasure almost, is seeing Martina Hingis blithely go about her new business of humbling the great and powerful. Yesterday it was Lindsay Davenport who succumbed. Not because Hingis has put enough power behind her shots to score outright winners, but that she simply stayed more consistent longer in the match than did Lindsay. Davenport is such a well-oiled machine when she plays well that we forget that it sometimes takes her a while to get into that rhythm. Like those howitzer-type things they had circa WW1, where you would have to fire a few first, then adjust the sights, until you got the range you wanted. Sometimes I feel that about Lindsay’s game. She zeroed in during the second set, but maybe the bulging disk in her spine is affecting her already, despite her denials otherwise. Hingis re-asserted herself in the long opening game of the third set, and after Hingis finally held serve, the message got through to Davenport: she wasn’t going to win on this day. Hingis moved through it without too much trouble from that point on, winning the last set in a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 effort.

I can remember the time when Martina Hingis really bugged me, and I yearned to see her lose. Suddenly I am very happy to see her back. Maybe this is the natural evolution of our feelings about being in the Era of Power in the game of tennis. Even the midgets can hit the ball a ton now, thanks to racket technology. So to see Hingis again, still a midget herself in spite of her best efforts to the contrary, is like seeing a style of tennis playing that’s in danger of becoming extinct. Because Hingis is not about power. She used to be all about being steady, but now she’s branching out, she’s placing her shots better and with more force behind them. You have an ultimate “control” type of player trying to evolve a more “power” style, wherein you give up some of your control. So far, it’s been an interesting experiment to watch, and to feel happy to see some success flowing her way.

Her countryman Mr. Federer often seems cut from the same cloth, another smooth and well-oiled machine, with some power too but more about placement, control and keeping steady. Maybe because of this effortlessness perhaps it’s hard to analyze them sometimes, it is so subtle. So many things work for them. They are a good challenge for those who think they know tennis.

The Tentatives:

Sadly, there are more of these than the Pleasant Surprises. Andy Roddick’s match concluded in yet another losing fashion, this time to Russian new kid, Igor Andreev. Igor does not look all that physically imposing, but those legs are fantastically lean and sculpted, and a quick wipe of his shirt to his face revealed abs we’d probably all kill our mothers for. He packs enough power to unload on one of the nicer looking forehands current in the men’s game. He can whip the ball in a low swipe and drive it hard and dipping, in an acute angle just over the net. A nasty inside-out forehand that basically put Roddick’s to shame today. The score was 6-4, 6-7, 6-1.

Roddick lost his focus after the second set tie-break. He should have started the third fired up and ready to seize the momentum. But instead he seemed to lose his edge again, and his way, the advantage shifted to his opponent and his opponent proved a far better grinder today than did Roddick.

Can Roddick keep his mental alertness over time on a court? I keep wondering that, and I keep answering myself in waffling tones. Sometimes I sense his energy is so out there everywhere at once that he may have trouble summoning it up at crucial points in a match. When he really needs it. It’s too diffuse to control and focus upon something.

Andre Agassi lost as well in an early round, by his standards, to Tommy Haas, one of the top players this year. The sad thing here was no one was really surprised, when you think about it. Their rankings aren’t that close really, but by year’s end Haas will probably be in the Top Ten, Andre will have moved out of it.

I don’t know if we are going to see Lindsay and Andre after this year is over. Somehow their similar predicaments seem illuminated now in this bright desert light. If it were anything but their backs, they could fudge it a bit longer maybe. But it’s the back, and that makes life difficult.

As for the women’s final, it is shaping up to be either Sharapova or Hingis to face Henin-Hardenne. Elena Dementieva is not going to be a problem for JHH.

I’m afraid it’s most likely going to be another final between those guys, Federer, Nadal. In fact, I propose we just caught to the chase, shall we? and just call them him, Roger Nadal. We’ll just say, “It’s another Roger Nadal Final.” After all, they probably will become one and the same person, given enough time. We may as well get used to it.

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