Check out the charity match, along with Nadal and Federer, who looked rather awkward during it.
Yikes. That was unpleasant. Those are some pretty sensitive egos.
A friend of my brother just recently mentioned to me that apparently Agassi wrote something to the effect of Pete being a cheapskate and totally w/o personality in his new book (whatever it was).
Maybe some of this stems from that. In the clip, I felt that Agassi was really the one who went overboard.
I thought it was pretty well known among tennis fans that Agassi doesn’t think Pete has much of a personality.
And I’m undecided on who went overboard. It was all smiles and jokes up until Pete literally started asking for Andre to return the joke (well, impression). So Pete literally was asking for it and when he got it, he didn’t seem to take too kindly to it.
But it could be said maybe Andre shouldn’t have been taking so many jabs specifically aimed at Pete in the preceding parts of the match.
I had no idea (doesn’t really mean it isn’t common knowledge, though).
It just seems that Sampras’ comment was kinda innocent while Agassi seemed to harp on his a little too long. If Agassi had made a joke and dropped it, I’d feel differently.
Well see, I thought Agassi did try to move on. Andre made a comment about Pete always being serious. Pete says I can be fun too and does an impression of Andre. Meanwhile, Andre is smiliing, laughing and ready to play the next point. Pete finishes his impression and literally antagonizes Andre into saying/doing something in return. Andre was fully prepared to let the joke go and get back to that game called tennis I think they were supposed to be playing, but Pete was the one not letting it go.
I don’t follow tennis like I used to, but I was huge fan back in the 90’s and yeah it’s well known that Agassi and Sampras really don’t like each other. It’s kind of strange because they both seem like great guys otherwise, but for some reason, be it a serious competitive streak or just incompatible personalities, they’ve never gotten along and it tended to somewhat mar a great rivalry. (Or maybe it simply intensified it based on your perspective.)
Watching the clip… To me it seemed like Pete was the one goading it on at first, but they both took it a bit far. Of course this was a charity event and it’s possible they were just yukking it for the cameras.
Agassi wrote in his book that Sampras tips very poorly, which was the source of the idea.
Eh, maybe, not gonna lose a lot of sleep over either one’s bad feelings, however.
I’ve heard that before and it’s probably true. There’s no reason to disbelieve Agassi on it and I don’t think Sampras has ever denied it.
Still, it seems like it would be such a small thing to get this upset over but I’ve read the tipping threads here on the board and it’s not a subject I want to broach too far. 
To be fair, they did hug at the end of the match and Pete did say they have no bad blood. I think it was just aggressive jabbing and the two are not enemies. They are just different. Pete is a tennis robot who plays very seriously. Andre is more laid back. The two come up against each other and personalities clash.
Here’s an article that details the comments in Open that Sampras did not like. You notice he doesn’t dispute the valet thing. 
I’ll watch this with sound later on. I’ve read the ESPN story and seen the video, and it does look like Sampras was actually offended.
I always thought Sampras was without much personality.
I watched the entire match the other night, and Agassi was a hoot for most of the match. IMO, Sampras thought the tightwad reference was below the belt, and Agassi should not have gone there considering the history of the book.
I really enjoyed seeing both exhibition matches. 94 Grand Slams Singles between the 8 legends.
The announcers called Steffi Graf “Stephanie” all night. I thought that was kind of odd because I never had heard her called Stephanie before. BTW, she can still play, she ripped several forehands and looked fit as a fiddle.
Martina is still an incredible player well into her early 50’s.
When Andre was asked about his wife’s performance, he said “Do you mean on the tennis court?” BWWAAAAHH!
I just watched it and feel Agassi was totally out of line. Sampras responds to Agassi’s comment about getting serious by doing a funny - and totally innocent - impersonation of the way Agassi used to prepare before points. When he says it’s Agassi’s tur, Agassi should have done something similar and maybe impersonate how Sampras usually got ready to receive. To bring up - true or not - something this personal and in effect embarrass Sampras in front of countless people was totally uncalled for.
If you take a look at these kind of matches (also senior tour matches) you see a lot of these impersonations that are aimed at what people used to do on the court (McEnroe getting angry, typical way of serving of boris Becker) and it’s all in good fun. I’ve never seen anyone joke about another player being Cheap or Arrogant or having any poeronality trate that is seen negatively; which is clearly what happened here.
I thought I would just jump in to point out that Open is a great read and I say this as someone who was never a fan of Agassi and only received the book as a Christmas gift.
I thought Agassi was perhaps a bit out of line - that said, Sampras does have the personality of cardboard, and he was egging Agassi on. It would have ended at that if Sampras then hadn’t launched a rocket right at Agassi on the next serve.
I don’t think the two hate each other, they’re just two completely different people. I do suspect, however, that Agassi takes the tipping thing quite seriously: just look at what Sampras has done with his money, and what Agassi is doing with his money.
I’ve seen Agassi play exhibitions before, and he is an absolute riot. He can do some hilarious impersonations as well. If you get the chance to see him play, it’s definitely worth the money.
If you’re into awkward comedy, this is great stuff. They’re kidding at first and it just boils over because they don’t like each other all that much and Sampras really didn’t appreciate what Agassi wrote about him. You can see how uncomfortable Federer is.
It’s worth pointing out here that Sampras does a Nadal impression (pulling his shorts out of his crack) at the beginning of the video, so he’s trying to get into the spirit of this thing. For some reason it looks like he was annoyed by Agassi’s “you always have to go get serious, huh, Pete?” comment, which was definitely a joke. And his Agassi imitation was pretty good, by the way. I don’t know why that bothered him. Agassi shouldn’t have made it personal with the tipping thing.
I can’t think of anything distinctive about the way Sampras got ready to receive serve. But it would have been a lot smarter.
The crowd already knew what Agassi wrote. That’s why they laughed. The whole thing makes no sense otherwise.
What was up with Sampras’, “sorry, Barack Obama” thing?
I didn’t get it either, but it must have something to do with a joke they made earlier.
By the way, Andre has apologized and said he made the wrong split-second decision to insult Pete like that. I think Pete will probably accept it.
I believe them when they say they really didn’t have seriously bad blood between them.
That’s the problem; if the funniest thing about me is the way I serve, and my opponent makes fun of it, and I all I am allowed to do in reply is to make fun of the way he returns serve, which may not be funny at all, then I am playing his game and have lost before I’ve started.