Sampras Stunned At Monte Carlo
Pete Sampras jeopardized his chance of becoming world No. 1 again when he crashed out of the Monte Carlo Open on Thursday -- 24 hours after saying he could master clay-court tennis.
The American suffered a humiliating 6-1, 6-1 third-round defeat to Frenchman Fabrice Santoro and will have to wait to see how Czech Petr Korda progresses to know whether he can claim the top spot back.
Korda, who beat Spaniard Albert Costa 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, must at least reach the final to take the top ranking from Chile's Marcelo Rios, who is sidelined indefinitely with a left elbow injury.
Korda needs to earn 212 more points than Sampras this week to take the top ranking from Rios, who became the No. 1 player a month ago after winning the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Fla. Rios, the defending Monte Carlo champion who is missing his second successive tournament, will drop 504 ranking points.
Australian Open champion Korda now meets former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands in the quarterfinals. Santoro now faces compatriot Cedric Pioline.
Sampras' stunning defeat came after a first-round bye and a 6-4, 7-5 second-round victory against Andre Agassi on Wednesday, his first-ever victory here.
Until then, Sampras had lost the three matches he had played at Monte Carlo in recent years, but had been heartened by his first success here.
"I know deep inside that I can play on the stuff (clay)," he said after beating Agassi.
But plagued by unforced errors, Sampras gave away 37 points of the 60 total points that Santoro won in the 66-minute match. Santoro committed only 8 errors.
Santoro, who reached the semifinals last year and beat Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera and Stefan Edberg in previous years here, won seven consecutive games in a sequence that gave him the first set and a 1-0 lead in the second.
"I played well at first but then he helped me beat him a lot," said Santoro, who is ranked 25th in the world.
Sampras said: "I'm pretty stunned. I really dug myself a big hole today. Every aspect of my game was just not there."
"You cannot afford to not play well against a player like Santoro who doesn't miss much. It's just a bad day," he added.
Of the world No. 1 spot, Sampras said: "I've said before that the only ranking that matters is the one at the end of the year. I can get it back and lose it again, it just varies every week."
Santoro has made a habit of beating Sampras on clay as well as beating big names at Monte Carlo.
The Frenchman beat Sampras at the Italian Open in 1991 and 1995. Santoro also holds victories against Thomas Muster and Sergi Bruguera at Monte Carlo. Muster and Bruguera have five Monte Carlo and three French Open titles between them.
It was the third consecutive tournament that Sampras has lost before the quarterfinals.
While Sampras was going through a nightmare against Santoro, Koda was struggling against Costa, a losing finalist here two years ago.
Despite leading 5-0 in the first set, the Czech suddenly cracked and, like Sampras on center court, conceded seven consecutive games to lose the set.
He then picked himself up, winning the second set and fighting his way back from one break down in the third to win in just under two hours.
Earlier, French Open Champion Gustavo Kuerten, seeded eighth, lost to Pioline 7-6, 6-1 while Yevgeny Kafelnikov lost to Spain's Carlo Moya 6-2, 6-3.
The defeats were hardly surprising though, as neither Brazil's Kuerten nor Russian Kafelnikov ever did well here while Pioline reached the final in 1993 and Moya the semifinals last year.
Krajicek will be one of very few serve-and-volley players left in the next round as he eased past Czech clay-court specialist Bohdan Ulihrach 6-4, 6-0.
Also in the third round, semi-retired Boris Becker eliminated a big hitter in downing No. 13 Mark Philippoussis 6-1, 6-1.
No. 6 seed Alex Corretja, last year's finalist, beat Andrea Gaudenzi 7-6 (7-1), 6-4; and No. 12 Alberto Berasategui defeated Slava Dosedel 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
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