Hey all!

Tennis has always been shaped by great rivalries. McEnroe vs. Borg. Federer vs. Nadal. Djokovic vs. Federer. Sinner vs. Alcaraz - still in the making.

But the rivalry that shaped us as kids was Andre Agassi vs. Pete Sampras. Same country. Same generation. Two completely different characters.

They played each other 34 times over 13 years. But nowhere did their rivalry feel quite like it did in New York. They met four times at the US Open. Sampras won all four. In 2001, they played one of the strangest great matches in tennis history. 6:7 - 7:6 - 7:6 - 7:6. Remember? And in 2002, they met one last time. Sampras won the final - his 14th Grand Slam, his fifth US Open and, as it turned out, the last competitive match he would ever play.

For our New York release, we wanted to capture everything that made this rivalry bigger than just the matches. And because this story belongs to New York, we wanted the artwork to feel like New York too.

HÜLPMAN is a Berlin-based graphic designer, painter and illustrator. His work is dynamic, bold and often built around narrative, using markers, spray paint and acrylic on everything from walls to textiles. Over the years, his work has appeared in exhibitions, festivals and street-art projects around the world.

For RIVALS, we asked him to turn more than a decade of tennis history into one piece of artwork. Not one image, but dozens of little stories, all drawn together in the raw, hand drawn visual language of street art. A fitting way to capture the energy of New York - and one of tennis' great rivalries.

The Back:
At first glance, it's a tennis ball. Look closer and an entire rivalry starts to appear. The artwork is made up of dozens of hand-drawn mini-illustrations, each telling its own little story from Sampras vs. Agassi.

There's the 2001 US Open quarterfinal with four tiebreaks and not a single break of serve. Their four US Open meetings – all won by Sampras. The outfits that made the two instantly recognizable. And even the legendary 1995 Guerrilla Tennis commercial makes an appearance, in which the two rivals turn a city street into a tennis court. Score lines, trophies, rackets and plenty of other references are hidden throughout the artwork. And above it all, a line from Agassi that perhaps sums up their rivalry best: “A great rival is like a mirror.”

The Front:
A hand-drawn interpretation of the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows – the iconic globe that welcomes you to the US Open grounds. Its circular shape mirrors the tennis ball on the back, accompanied by the coordinates of Flushing Meadows.

RIVALS is our first 58g release on black. And for this one, there really was no other choice. Sampras vs. Agassi. The US Open. The Night Session. Few rivalries and certainly no other Grand Slam are as closely connected to tennis after dark.

Like all our releases, RIVALS is produced in limited batches. Shipping will start in approximately four weeks.

Enjoy the next two weeks in Flushing Meadows! There’s plenty of tennis history still to be written.

Norman & Andreas
58g

Want to know more? Head over to 58grams.com to explore the details behind the designs.