This Final Act Figures to Be Worth the Wait

The magical matchup will take place. The Indian Wells Garden will have a party today, and the guests of honor will need no introduction at the door. They go by Pete and Andre.

This Tennis Masters Series event could not be more appropriately named, because it will feature two of them in the men’s final.

The tale of the tape is as follows:

In the blue corner, holding more Grand Slam event titles than any other male with 13, a hard-serving champion who, at 29, has won $41 million in prize money, we have Pete Sampras.

And in the red corner, one of only five men to win each Grand Slam event title at least once, a king of the baseline game and the return of service who, at 30, has won more than $21 million in prize money, we have Andre Agassi.

When they step onto center court at 11:30 a.m. today, it will be the 30th time they have reported to work together in their storied careers. Sampras has won 17, Agassi 12. And even though they haven’t played since Jan. 27, 2000, when they played a five-set match in the semifinals of the Australian Open that was so good it had people writing songs about it, they both know this is special.

Agassi said, “This is a memory waiting to happen. If we were playing in our backyard, I’d be excited.”

Sampras, a master of understatement, said, “Tomorrow will be some good tennis.”

Saturday wasn’t bad, either.

In his semifinal against Russian veteran Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Sampras got behind in each set and ran off five straight games in each to win. The scores were 7-5, 6-4, and Sampras trailed in the first, 2-5, and in the second, 1-4.

“I just kind of hung in there, scrapped and clawed,” Sampras said.

Kafelnikov, who at 27, with two Grand Slam event titles to his name and nearly $19 million in prize money, is no walk in the park for anybody, was nevertheless amazed at Sampras’ ability to come back twice with big runs.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” he said. “In fact, I don’t recall the last time it happened to me.”

Agassi’s advance was less dramatic, but not less difficult. He beat 20-year-old Australian baseliner Lleyton Hewitt, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, but when it was finished, neither Agassi nor Hewitt were nominating the match for a spot in tennis artistry’s top 10.

“It was pretty choppy,” said Agassi, who ran off 12 straight points midway through the final set, but then was unable to serve out the match at 5-4 and had to break Hewitt to win.

“It was like a football game where you’re going into halftime, the score is 0-0, it’s like eight turnovers, two blocked punts, no scores. Nobody had any feel about how to step up and start executing their game.”

Hewitt said, “Tough conditions out there, a lot gustier than when I first hit this morning or this afternoon.”

Today’s final will mark the 14th time these two icons of their sport have met in a final. The last time they met here was in a final, the 1995 version of the event then played at the Grand Champions Hyatt Resort, which is a John Daly drive and three-wood away from the current state-of-the-art facility, in its second year as host.

Sampras and Agassi played that one on a Monday night, and the match, designed to boost the sport in a prime-time TV show, did just that in a hotly competitive 7-5, 6-3, 7-5 victory by Sampras.

In addition to that one and the 2000 Australian, Sampras-Agassi head-to-heads drawing most votes here as classics included Sampras’ 1995 U.S. Open final win, Agassi’s ’95 Key Biscayne final win, and the 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 win by Sampras in the ’99 Wimbledon final.

When it goes to Sampras and Agassi to do the assessing, each seems to be too close to the forest to see the trees.

Agassi said, “I can’t say any one in particular stands out.”

Sampras said, “You know, we’ve had some memorable moments.”

In all likelihood, today will be another.

In a sport that has struggled recently for its piece of the sports attention pie, and at an event that, until the men’s final was set, got its biggest bang from a women’s match that wasn’t played, Sampras versus Agassi is a godsend.

They are the sport’s two-headed Tiger Woods, the premier and the prime minister. They may have been seeded third and fourth here, but they were clearly the people’s choice to win Saturday, and there will be 16,071 here today who will not only be using their tickets to get in, but hanging onto the stubs for framing.

The winner gets $400,000, the loser $190,000, and the money is incidental to each. Sampras has won this tournament twice, Agassi never. They won’t be thinking much about that either. Just each other, and the next shot.

College basketball has a month of March Madness. Tennis can only respond with its one-day Garden Party, where one thing is certain.

The wine served will truly be vintage.