WIMBLEDON MEN : Sampras a Constant Amid Many Surprises

WIMBLEDON, England —  Welcome to the gentlemen’s round of 16, where the lineup includes:

--No. 1-seeded Pete Sampras, who has yet to lose a set or utter an interesting word.

--No. 7 Boris Becker, Germany’s last hope.

--No. 12 Andre Agassi, the former champion whose body hair has mesmerized supposedly the world’s most civilized nation.

--No. 6 Todd Martin--Andre the Giant killer?

--No. 10 Michael Chang, who never met a five-set match he didn’t like.

--No. 1,130-ranked Guy Forget, who plays . . . unseeded Jeremy Bates of Great Britain--or as the desperate Brits now call him, “Our Jeremy,” England’s only hope.

--Unseeded Bryan Shelton, who is the first African-American male since Arthur Ashe to advance this far.

And so it goes here at crazy Wimbledon, where seeded players have been dropping like the dollar and a nation holds its breath for its favorite son.

Bates isn’t likely to win this thing, though you wouldn’t know it by the Centre Court reception he received before, during and after his 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, victory Saturday over Germany’s Markus Zoecke. Fans bowed in appreciation after Bates’ best shots. And each ovation was louder than the next.

“All of a sudden I’m serving for the match, the noise was just. . . . It was incredible in there, everyone cheering for me serving for the match. . . . I thought the whole place was going to fall down,” Bates said. “It was incredible, it really was.”

Bates was one of 18 British singles entries when the tournament began last Monday. Now he’s one of one.

“I travel 30 weeks of the year and I get abused 29 of them,” he said. “It’s really nice to have one week when everyone’s screaming for me.”

Bates, who reached the round of 16 here in 1992, bristled when asked about his status as the lone Brit left in the draw.

“I’m not the last great hope,” he said. “I’m not a great hope. It’s just nonexistent. You’re making the great hope up. I’m not. It’s not there. This is some fictitious character, it is.”

As Bates dealt with his sudden surge of popularity, Sampras went about his business, which is winning matches as quickly as possible. He beat Chuck Adams, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4, in a match that was suspended last Friday because of rain.

“So far, so good,” said Sampras, who will play unseeded Daniel Vacek of the Czech Republic in Monday’s match.

The same goes for Becker, the three-time Wimbledon champion who disposed of Argentina’s Javier Frana, 7-6 (7-4), 6-4, 1-6, 6-3. Becker will play No. 9 Andrei Medvedev of Ukraine.

If Becker goes, so do the Germans.

“We just had a bad tournament, German-wise,” he said. “I’m the last Mohican, and I hope I can keep that candle until the end.”

Shelton, who needed more than four hours to defeat Australia’s Jason Stoltenberg, 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 5-7, 7-5, 6-4, never has advanced to the fourth round of a Grand Slam event. He needed to finish in the top 16 of a local qualifying tournament merely to earn a Wimbledon invitation.

Shelton will play unseeded Christian Bergstrom of Sweden.

Men’s Notes

No. 5 Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia advanced with a 6-3, 7-5, 6-4, victory over Israel’s Amos Mansdorf. When Ivanisevic reached the final two years ago, he ate the same thing every day for a week: fish soup, lamb chops, French fries and vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. Said Ivanisevic of the experience: “In that restaurant they believed me nuts.” . . . Shelton is the 12th qualifier in the Open Era to reach the round of 16 at Wimbledon.