We investigate femtosecond photoassociation of thermally hot atoms in the gas phase and 
its coherent control. In the photoassociation process, formation of a chemical bond is 
facilitated by light in a free-to-bound optical transition. Here, we study free-to-bound
photoassociation of a diatomic molecule induced by femtosecond pulses exciting a pair of
scattering atoms interacting via the van-der-Waals-type electronic ground state 
potential into bound levels of an electronically excited state. The thermal gas of 
reactants is at temperatures in the range of hundreds of degrees. Despite this 
incoherent initial state, rotational and vibrational coherences are observed in the 
probing of the created Mg2 molecules.