Watched the Paribas match this morning with my dad. It was sooo cool. Eight tennis legends with a combined 94 Grand Slam titles between them stepped on court for the “Hit for Haiti” charity exhibition presented by Oracle, and raised $1 million for earthquake relief efforts on a memorable Friday night at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
On the women’s side, Martina Navratilova and Justine Henin teamed up for an 8-6 win over Lindsay Davenport and Steffi Graf, while Roger Federer and Pete Sampras defeated Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal by the same scoreline in the second exhibition match of the night. I was rooting for Agassi and Nadal to win but it was a close call.
Since this was a friendly match, all players were given microphones which was attached to their clothes so that the audience could hear what they were saying. They were soooooo funny!!
At one point when a male staff member helped reattach Graf’s microphone pack to her back, her competitors quipped, “You’re going to get it from Agassi!”
Agassi, who married Graf in 2001, also took part in the friendly banter on court. He joked, “All the children are probably wondering, ‘Who are these two old bald guys playing with Federer and Nadal?’” to which Sampras retorted, “I still have some hair left. You look like Kojak over there.”
Agassi also teased partner Nadal after the Spaniard failed to reach a shot, telling him, “You move a lot faster on TV,” and poked fun at himself after Federer told him to take off his long pants. “They haven’t seen the sun in six months,” he said before rolling up his track pants to reveal his pale legs.
Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal
Justine Henin and Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi
All in all it was the most entertaining match that I have ever seen and the best part is that the victims of Haiti get the million dollars. It was really nice of the players to spare time and help out, and this is the first match Nadal played after his injury and he was quite good!!! Go Nadal!! haha....
