Roger Federer, Pete Sampras Enjoy Two Day Practice Session

Posted on March 9, 2007

Roger Federer revealed in his pre-tournament press conference Friday that he had practiced with Pete Sampras in Los Angeles in the lead-up to the Pacific Life Open.

Federer and Sampras met just once on the ATP circuit - in the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2001 when Federer won 7-5 in the fifth set.

Here is what Federer had to say about their practice sessions this week:

Q. I'm not sure I heard you correctly. You say you practiced with Pete?
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, we hit together for two days.

Q. How did he play?
ROGER FEDERER: Very good, surprisingly. Very good, you know. Not good enough to beat me (laughing).

Q. If you could describe a little bit about playing with Pete. I mean, you get some flashes of his great shots, the winning forehand. What was it like?
ROGER FEDERER: That was great. Well, I knew I was coming to L.A., so I'm kind of thinking, who's around in L.A.? So, I rang up Pete and said, "Any chance?"
He was like, "Yeah, sure."
I'm totally excited. So right away I had the idea, anyway seeing how good he plays because he was one of my favorite players, when I was growing up and beating him in his backyard in Wimbledon was so special to me. I wanted to try to -- I wanted to beat him in his house. So it was very enjoyable to actually hit with him. It would be kind of cool to maybe play an exhibition against him. We'll see. But he was playing very well.

Q. Did you play some sets or?
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, we did play some games and sets and tiebreaks and --

Q. What was the score?
ROGER FEDERER: Can't tell you. But it was good fun.