Sampras Falls to Unseeded Santoro in Rome

Pete Sampras became the first top-seeded player and defending champion to be eliminated in the first round of the Italian Open in Rome as he lost, 6-4, 6-3, Tuesday to unseeded Fabrice Santoro of France. Sampras was one of three seeded players ousted from the clay-court tennis tournament. No. 9 Jim Courier, a two-time champion, was upset, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), by French qualifier Thierry Guardiola. No. 6 Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia lost, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, to Italian qualifier Corrado Borroni.

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Scott Humphries and Paul Goldstein won their singles matches, then teamed to win the No. 1 doubles as Stanford completed an undefeated season with a 4-0 victory over Mississippi for the NCAA men’s tennis championship in Athens, Ga. . . . Ivan Baron, the unseeded son of tournament director Mark Baron who made the draw as a wild card, knocked off top-seeded Magnus Larsson of Sweden, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, in the first round of the America’s Red Clay tournament in Coral Springs, Fla.

Horse Racing

Go For Gin, who in 1994 won the Kentucky Derby and finished second in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, retired from racing because of a leg injury. Trainer Nick Zito said Go For Gin slightly injured his ankle--a tear of the tendon sheath in his left foreleg--in a workout. . . . The field for the Preakness fell to 11 when trainer Richard Violette ruled out English colt Citadeed because of an injured left foreleg.

Football

Lloyd Carr, appointed Michigan’s interim coach a week ago when Gary Moeller resigned, will serve at least through the 1995 season, the school said. . . . The expansion Carolina Panthers of the NFL signed free agent wide receiver and kick returner Dwight Stone to a one-year contract. . . . Louis Oliver, a free agent safety, agreed to a two-year contract with Miami.

Baseball

Dave Gorrie, who coached baseball at Pepperdine and is a member of the College Baseball Hall of Fame, will speak to the Community College Board of Trustees today at Pierce College in an effort to save the baseball program at Los Angeles City College. LACC decided to drop the baseball program after 63 years. The meeting starts at 3:30 p.m. at the Pierce Campus Center. . . . The Daiei Hawks in Japan plan to release former National League slugger Kevin Mitchell in a dispute over a knee injury. Mitchell wants medical treatment, but Japanese doctors who examined the injury don’t regard it as serious enough to affect his playing, the Kyodo News Service reported.

Jurisprudence

A federal jury began hearing the case of former NBA player Jeff Ruland, who claims his basketball career ended when a Boston Celtic ball boy accidentally crashed a ball cart into his leg in January 1992. Ruland, who was playing for Philadelphia at the time, is suing the Celtics for compensation for missed games, mental anguish and attorney’s fees. . . . World Boxing Assn. light-heavyweight champion Virgil Hill has pleaded innocent to a weapons-possession charge brought after a shootout at a nightclub in Mays Landing, N.J., where he was a customer. Hill handed a loaded pistol to a bouncer on his way into the club, his lawyer said.

Miscellany

The NBA expansion draft to stock the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies will be conducted June 24. Existing teams will be able to protect eight players, and none of the teams will lose more than one. The league also announced that each franchise has paid $65 million of its $125 million expansion fee. . . . Richard Pound, an International Olympic Committee vice president, agrees with the decision by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games to set aside prime tickets for government officials. . . . Somalia’s Olympic track team won’t train in Barrow County, Georgia, if it’s not wanted, said Ali Osman Ali, secretary general of the Somali Olympic Committee. Some Georgians objected to the Somalia team’s training in their county because of the way some Somalis treated U.S. soldiers in 1993, when troops were in the African nation to help deliver food and keep peace.

Names in the News

Joe Montana will be a studio analyst on the pregame show “NFL Live,” for NBC, the network announced. . . . Starting point guard Michael McClain of Washington, who was suspended in February and later pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree assault charge in a case that involved women’s basketball star Rhonda Smith, is leaving the Huskies’ basketball program.