World number one Roger Federer beat Pete Sampras in three sets in an exhibition match at Madison Square Garden.

Federer, who revealed last week that he has been suffering from glandular fever, beat the 14-time Grand Slam winner 6-3 6-7 7-6 in an absorbing contest.

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 the illness.

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

Positive response

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.

Sampras, meanwhile, has backed Federer to overcome his current troubles and resume his dominance of the world game.

Unbeatable

"Roger's sort of created this monster, of being unbeatable, and just losing a match people have the assumption that he's lost his ability, lost his dominance," Sampras said.

"I don't think that at all. I think he'll do just fine.

"Every great player in all sports will pick up losses here and there, I certainly did that, and people will start to think he's lost his edge.

"Let's just be fair, and try to keep it real. This guy is incredible and he'll bounce back just fine, I've no question about that."