Losses Are Adding Up for Sampras

Everything was setting up so nicely for top-seeded Pete Sampras. Three threats to his supremacy--Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Patrick Rafter and Alex Corretja--were dismissed before he stepped on the court at the Newsweek Champions Cup.

Then Sampras had to go and play a match.

Afterward, he was dazed, despondent and a bit confused about the state of his game, losing, 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 6-3, to Spaniard Felix Mantilla on Wednesday in a second-round match, double-faulting on match point. Those were common emotions around the grounds, as the No. 1 female player in the world, Martina Hingis, was dispatched in straight sets earlier in the day.

“Losing to [Thomas] Muster [here] last year, losing tonight, that’s not a low point, but it’s not good for the confidence,” said Sampras, who committed 54 unforced errors to Mantilla’s 16. “It’s going to take some time, but I’m a pretty impatient guy. I want to win everything I play. You know, I’m here just scratching my head, wondering what happened tonight.”

Confusion was not limited to Sampras. After Mantilla’s upset, the public address announcer at Grand Champions Resort called him “Alex Mantilla.” Well, the 20th-ranked Mantilla did sport a different look last year at the French Open when he reached the semifinals, dyeing his dark hair yellow.

Blond ambition was replaced by blind ambition and a dazzling array of passing shots.

Mantilla broke Sampras in the third game of the third set, hitting two sensational backhands and one lunging forehand winner.

“I knew Pete played not very much this year,” Mantilla said. “I said, ‘Well, I’m playing well. I’m feeling well on the court. I’m going to do my best and fight all the match.’ I lose the second set, but I continued fighting all the third set. That’s why I won. I believed I could win.”

Mantilla helped prop the No. 1 door open for countryman Carlos Moya.

Moya is the sole remaining player who could supplant Sampras at No. 1 at this event. He could do so by reaching the final. Another Spaniard, Corretja, fell apart in unusual fashion, losing a one-set, 4-1 lead against Mark Philippoussis of Australia. Philippoussis prevailed, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, and a shattered Corretja called himself “stupid” about four times in his post-match interview.

“If you cannot control your mind--mentally, you’re not tough,” said the third-seeded Corretja, who has won one match since reaching the final in Sydney in January. “You have to be No. 1 when you deserve it. I didn’t play my best tennis. I didn’t deserve to be there. Today, I was really stupid.”

Sampras was not quite as hard on himself. He also knows he is a bit behind, having skipped the Australian Open. In his first event, he reached the semifinals at San Jose but defaulted because of a left leg injury. Last week, he lost to young American Jan-Michael Gambill in three sets at Scottsdale, Ariz., in the second round.

Nevertheless, Sampras was in rare form when the tiresome--well, at least to him--topic of Davis Cup came up. Canadian-turned-Brit, Greg Rusedski, sparked a flurry of media action when he said there was a rumor Sampras might play Davis Cup against Great Britain in April.

“I’ve heard a lot of rumors about Greg,” said Sampras, smiling. “Well, there were many years that everyone thought he was Canadian.”

He paused and delivered the kicker.

“We all know Greg and we all know he’s English,” Sampras said. “Rumors are rumors.”

Translation: Sampras playing Davis Cup? No chance.

Tennis Notes

An official dedication ceremony was held Wednesday morning at the projected year 2000 site of the Newsweek and Evert Cups, an area near the corner of Miles and Washington about a mile away from the current tournament site in Indian Wells. The $65-million facility will include a 16,000-seat main stadium already well underway (the current site seats 11,500) and will be called the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. . . . The week of incredible upsets continued late into the evening Wednesday, when the top-ranked women’s doubles team in the world, Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva, lost to the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, in a match that ended at 11:00.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Today’s Featured Matches

STADIUM COURT, STARTING AT 10 A.M.

* Greg Rusedski, England (10) vs. Tim Henman, England (7).

* Chanda Rubin vs. Steffi Graf, Germany (5).

* Nicolas Kiefer, Germany vs. Karol Kucera, Slovakia (12).

* Mark Philippoussis, Australia vs. Marat Safin, Russia.

STARTING 6:30 P.M.

* Xavier Malisse, Belgium vs. Carlos Moya, Spain (4).

CLUBHOUSE COURT, STARTING 10 A.M.

* Sjeng Schalken, the Netherlands vs. Gustavo Kuerten, Brazil.

* Richard Krajicek, the Netherlands (8) vs. Jan Siemerink,

the Netherlands.

* Felix Mantilla, Spain vs. Chris Woodruff.

*

* HINGIS UPSET: The top-seeded women’s player loses to unseeded Chanda Rubin. Page 14