Federer battles past Sampras

World number one Roger Federer battled to a 6-3 6-7 (7/4) 7-6 (8/6) victory against 14-time Grand Slam winner Pete Sampras in an absorbing exhibition match at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

Sampras rolled out his classic serve-and-volley game, improving with each set and prompting a rusty Federer to step up in order to claim the victory in two hours and 15 minutes.

Federer has lost his last two competitive outings, falling to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semi-final and then making a first-round exit to Andy Murray in Dubai as he continues his recovery from glandular fever.

But he broke Sampras' serve in the first game of the match as the 12-time Grand Slam winner eased through the opening set.

Sampras, who retired in 2003 after having played his last competitive match in the 2002 US Open final, responded in the second and held his serve to force a tiebreak and then served superbly to build a 5-2 cushion before capturing the set.

The 36-year-old rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the final set to take a 5-2 lead, but 26-year-old Federer stepped up his game and broke back to 5-4, and after serving a perfect game at 6-5 down, claimed the tie-break and the match.

Federer and Sampras only met once competitively when the then unseeded 20-year-old Swiss staged an upset at Wimbledon in 2001 after beating the defending champion in five sets to reach the quarter-finals.

Last November Federer beat Sampras 2-1 in a three-match Asian Tour after the American recorded a straight sets victory in the final match in Macau.