Top Three Lose, but Sampras Gains

The mighty fell Thursday in New Haven, Conn., when Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras, U.S. Open champion Patrick Rafter and third-seeded Petr Korda were ousted from the Pilot Pen International tennis tournament.

Sampras announced his intention to rest after losing, 6-3, 6-4, to qualifier Leander Paes of India, who is ranked No. 100.

“I felt very flat. Playing three weeks in a row has taken its toll emotionally. You can’t afford to be flat in this league,” said Sampras, who plans to return to Florida to recharge for the U.S. Open.

Sampras, however, will regain his No. 1 ATP ranking because Chile’s Marcelo Rios lost at the RCA Championships.

Rafter, whose 7-6 (10-8), 6-3, ouster by 48th-ranked Guillaume Raoux of France ended an 11-match winning streak that included victories in his last two tournaments, said he also was drained.

“You can lose to anyone, any given day,” said the Australian, second-seeded and the third-ranked player in the world.

Fellow Czech Bohdan Ulihrach defeated Korda, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3. Defending champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia beat Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, 6-4, 6-4.

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Steffi Graf’s trip along the comeback trail hit a speed bump in Montreal, where the German lost to Spain’s Magui Serna, 6-4, 6-4, in the third round of the du Maurier Open.

Top-seeded Martina Hingis of Switzerland defeated Japan’s Ai Sugiyama, 6-3, 6-0, to reach the quarterfinals, where she was joined by second-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic (a 6-1, 6-4 winner over Silvia Farina of Italy) and fifth-seeded Monica Seles (who defeated Yayuk Basuki of Indonesia, 6-3, 6-3).

International Sports

Half of the athletes picked for random drug tests by the U.S. Olympic Committee escape the exams, partly because of the cost of tracking them down, the Washington Post reported.

The newspaper quoted Wade Exum, director of the USOC’s drug control administration, as saying only about 80 of the 150 to 200 athletes earmarked each month for random tests are checked.

Dick Schultz, the USOC’s executive director, said drug tests cost the committee an average of $428 each from a four-year budget of $11.5 million, 2.7% of its total spending plan.

Signaling a new resolve in the fight against performance-enhancing drugs, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee, meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, proposed to set up a special agency to coordinate drug testing around the world.

The emergency meeting, summoned to address the drug scandals that have tarnished the sports world this summer, called for the creation of an “Olympic movement anti-doping agency.”

The chairman of the IOC’s medical commission, Prince Alexandre de Merode, refused to retract his allegation that sports doctors in Spain encourage drug use and rejected calls for his resignation.

De Merode said his comments about “tendencies toward doping” in Spain applied to all countries.

“There is a tendency toward doping also in the United States, Britain and the whole world,” he said. “It applies to everybody. Do you know a country where there isn’t a tendency toward doping? It doesn’t exist. It’s a reality in all the world.”

A doping scandal took center stage at the Central American and Caribbean Games at Maracaibo, Venezuela, after two Mexican athletes were accused of ingesting banned substances.

Mexico lost seven medals, two of them gold, when officials announced swimmer Erendira Villegas and cyclist Nancy Contreras had taken steroids and other substances designed to improve athletic prowess.

Ulrich Suender and Dorit Roesler, former East German doctors, and Peter Mattonet, a coach, were fined in Berlin after being convicted of causing bodily harm to female swimmers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Track and Field

Reyes Estevez, a 22-year-old Spaniard, clocked 3 minutes 41.31 seconds in winning the 1,500-meter title in the European championships at Budapest, Hungary.

Estevez surged to a 15-meter lead, then slowed 20 meters from the end and wagged his right index finger, beating Portugal’s Rui Silva and Spain’s more renowned Fermin Cacho, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist and 1996 silver medalist. Also, Erki Nool gave Estonia its first European championships gold medal since 1938 when his javelin throw of 231 feet 9 inches made him the decathlon champion with 8,667 points.

Basketball

Amid the uncertainty of the NBA lockout, Ruben Patterson, the Lakers’ second-round draft pick from Cincinnati, has signed a contract with Athens AEK in Greece and will not play in the NBA in 1998-99.

The Lakers retain the rights to the 6-foot-6 Patterson, who averaged 16.3 points for the Bearcats last season and was projected as a potential Laker reserve at either shooting guard or small forward.

Guard Shea Seals, who played in four games as a rookie with the Lakers last season, underwent surgery in Tulsa, Okla., on his left knee to repair a torn ligament.

Lisa Leslie of the Sparks was among six professionals selected as core members of the USA women’s national team. Others were Jennifer Azzi, Ruthie Bolton-Holifield, Nikki McCray, Katie Smith and Dawn Staley of the Philadelphia Rage.

Former UCLA players George Zidek and Tyus Edney have agreed to one-year contracts with the Zalgirls Basketball Club in Kaunas, Lithuania. They will join former New York Knick Anthony Bowie with Zalgirls.

Miscellany

New Jersey-based boxing promoter Main Events sued International Boxing Federation junior-lightweight champion Roberto Garcia of Oxnard and America Presents Ltd., asserting the boxer violated their contract when he joined with a Denver-based promoter.

Former Texas Christian and Minnesota football coach Jim Wacker has taken over as athletic director at Southwest Texas State, where he coached the football team to NCAA Division II national championships in 1981 and 1982.

Nancy Lay and Sandra Hunt, two of five women who have been assistant referees in Major League Soccer, will make their debuts as senior referees on Aug. 29, becoming the first women in that role in league history. . . . UCLA is ranked 18th in the Soccer America women’s preseason collegiate top 20 list. North Carolina is No. 1.

A hearing set for Thursday for jockey Guillermo Gutierrez, who was caught with an electrical prodding device after a quarter-horse race at Los Alamitos on Sunday night, has been rescheduled for next week, probably Thursday.

Old Habits, a 2-year-old purchased for $18,500 by a contingent of 10 Orange County women, ran the fastest qualifying time (21.55 seconds) for the $1,931,441 All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.