In an exhibition match that lasted two hours and fifteen minutes, world number one Roger Federer defeated the 14-time Grand Slam winner Pete Sampras with 6-3 6-7 (7/4) 7-6 (8/6). The match took place at Madison Square Garden on Monday in front of a crowd of 19,690 people.

"This is maybe why so many people came out: You don't often get the No. 1 in his prime playing against maybe the greatest player of all time," said Federer.

Federer, who is the 12-time Grand Slam winner, is recovering from mononucleosis, a disease caused by the virus Epstein-Barr.

Because of his disease, Federer was defeated by Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semi-final and then he suffered a  first-round exit in front of Andy Murray in Dubai.

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

In the third set, Pete Sampras, who is 10 years older than Federer, rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take a 5-2 lead. Youth claimed its rights though and the 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 tiebreak and the match.

After the match, Sampras said he had had the match, but that Federer was surprisingly good. "Sure I'm a little disappointed. I had the match on my racket and he came up with some great passing shots and all credit to him", said Sampras.

"In the third set I thought I had everything under control and he starts to make returns. I didn't have much rhythm and all of a sudden I was down and I thought that was it but like Pete said I hit some great shots when I needed to," Federer said.

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.

In a pre-game press conference, Federer said he has no intention to retire. "In Switzerland there's a little too much speculation that my career is over, so I had to put the record straight," Federer said.