Marcelo Rios defeated Pete Sampras in the long awaited exhibition match in Santiago, Chile. I am going to check out youtube to see if there are videos posted on the match. The Chilean fans are usually pretty good about posting videos of tennis exhibitions in Chile onto youtube. Despite the fact that Marcelo won the match, I am still going to bring a vegeterian hero to the US Open for RP, assuming I can score some tix and can work out the logistics!
I will concede that Andre and Pete both had better careers than Marcelo and Pete probably would have an edge if Pete and Marcelo had a long series of matches on the regular tour. With Andre, Marcelo had a 2-1 edge and it is 3-1 for Marcelo if you count the exhibition. I will concede that Marcelo got to play Andre when Andre was in his lost years and Marcelo was at his all too brief peak.
Marcelo was 1-0 against McEnroe (Lisbon 2007) and I have to wonder if John, even in his prime, would have had many weapons to counter Marcelo's superior speed.
Marcelo's win over Pete makes one wonder if Marcelo, had he not been injured so often, could have been Rafa before there was Rafa. I have my doubts that Marcelo could ever have been as brilliant as Rafa, due to the fact that Rafa is a once in a lifetime athlete and Rafa could play pro soccer if he trained for it. But had Marcelo not been injured so often, and he was 80% of what Rafa is, Marcelo might have won 2 or 3 slams.