LISBON The young guns of tennis are priming themselves for a showdown with the sport's old guard at the season-ending Masters Cup in Lisbon this week.
Marat Safin, Gustavo Kuerten, Magnus Norman and Lleyton Hewitt all have their eyes on the silverware but a quartet of seasoned talent stands in their way.
Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Alex Corretja have a total of 21 Grand Slam titles between them and are determined to hang on to power for a while longer.
The Atlantic pavilion tournament will see the eight top players split into two groups of four for round-robin matches before a knock-out format to determine the champion.
Champions' race leader Safin is hot favorite to end the year ranked number. The 20-year-old Russian would be the first non-American to top the year-end rankings since Stefan Edberg of Sweden in 1991.
U.S. Open champion Safin, like Hewitt and Norman making his first appearance in the season-ender, said: "I think I am playing great tennis and I won enough tournaments to show it on all surfaces.
"I have to be prepared and calm in Lisbon. That's the week you have to be 100 percent." The champions' race was announced last year to replace a 12-month ranking system, deemed by ATP officials to be confusing for fans, and it took time to bring the cream to the top.
But there can be few complaints now as, without doubt, the eight strongest players in the world will be in Lisbon and four Safin, Kuerten, Sampras and Norman could still end this week as number one.
Youngest Player Of the eight only Hewitt, Norman and Corretja have not won at least one Grand Slam but Corretja knows his way around the ATP masters having won the title in 1998.
French Open champion Kuerten led the champions' race for most of the second half of the year before Safin's late surge and he could take top spot if Safin suffers an early mishap and the Brazilian reaches the final.
Both players athletic, exciting and fan-friendly have been a godsend to the men's tour which has been looking for several years for top-drawer rivals for Sampras and Agassi.
Sampras is the only player to have taken part in the season-ender every year since 1990.
Despite being outclassed by Safin in September's U.S. Open final and barely lifting a racket in anger since, it would be a brave man who would bet against the American holder of a record 13 Grand Slam titles.
The defending champion has won the masters five times in a decade in which he has dominated men's tennis.
In July he won his seventh Wimbledon title to eclipse Roy Emerson's record of 12 Grand Slams.
Old Enemy But if there is one man Sampras does fear, it would be his old enemy Agassi.
The pair have been battling head-to-head since they were juniors and, although Sampras has won 17 of their 29 senior clashes, no player has beaten Sampras more times than his 30-year-old compatriot.
Among the most spectacular of Agassi's 12 victories over Sampras was his latest in the semifinals of the Australian open when he came back from two sets to one down to win in five.
The Las Vegan went on to beat Kafelnikov in the final to win his sixth Grand Slam crown.
Having won this title in 1990 and played the tournament four times in the last decade, Agassi is certainly a threat but he is struggling with a hip injury and seems to be heading down into one of his occasional dips in form.
Kafelnikov, on the other hand, is hitting top form at just the right time.
The 1996 French Open and 1999 Australian Open champion grabbed Olympic gold in Sydney and served notice he means business in Lisbon by winning the Kremlin Cup in Moscow last month.
(Reuter)