PHILIPPOUSSIS READY FOR SAMPRAS
By Louise Robson

PARIS, May 27 AAP - Last time Mark Philippoussis played Pete Sampras, the Australian had the upper hand at Wimbledon last year.

Up one set, Philippoussis was forced to retire as his knee gave way and Sampras went on to win his 12th Grand Slam title.

The two have not played each other since but are drawn to meet in an enticing first round match up at the French Open and Philipoussis is confident despite his recent poor clay court results.

"Mark's really looking forward to this because it's a big match," said Philippousis' coach Gavin Hopper after their practice session at Roland Garros today.

"It's the first round, it will probably be on centre court, court one or one of the major courts with a big crowd and lots of expectations."

The first round clash must be at least as problematic for second seed Sampras as it is for Philippoussis, given the American's similarly erratic recent form and well known difficulty finding a winning formula on clay.

The French Open is the one big gap in the 28-year-old Sampras' career resume but he sounds almost fatalistic when discussing his chances of filling it.

"For the time being, I decided to stop making plans to win in Paris, to let this victory come rather than try to provoke it," Sampras has told Le Monde newspaper.

The two players have faced each other nine times and Sampras has won seven of the encounters but the clay probably favours Philippoussis.

"He's pretty comfortable playing Pete Sampras on pretty much every surface," Hopper said. "...especially on clay Mark is going into it fairly comfortable and reasonably confident."

Phillippoussis has only played five matches on clay this year and has lost two first round matches in the past two weeks -- to Lleyton Hewitt in Hamburg and to American Jeff Tarango in Austria -- but he showed how effective he could be on the surface when he steered Australia to victory in the Davis Cup final in Nice last year.

Hopper made light of the recent losses and said he was satisfied with the preparation.

"You make the choice, you come over very early and go right through to Wimbledon or you delay a little and maybe your first results will not be as good as you expect but you'll be fresh by the time the French Open and Wimbledon come up.

"But I think his preparation now has been good.

"Obviously a few more matches would have been nice but I think he's put enough time in on the clay now having been over here three weeks."

Hopper said Philippoussis would not be overshadowed by Sampras' reputation, despite his 7-2 win-loss record.

"You've got to remember a lot of those matches, Pete was at his peak and Mark was one of the younger guys coming through on the tour," he said.

"Now it's a little different.

"Pete is perhaps towards the end of his career and Mark's coming into the middle of his career so you can look at the record but you've really got to look at what these guys are doing right at this present stage.

"You can't say either of them have done unbelievably well on clay but Mark's performances on clay over the years have been pretty good.

"He's won tournaments on clay, he's helped to win the Davis Cup on clay so he's comfortable on that surface and I don't think you can ever say that Sampras is ever comfortable on it."

Meanwhile, Australia's Rachel McQuillan failed to secure a place in the womens singles main draw when she was beaten by American Jennifer Hopkins in the final round of the qualifying tournament.

McQuillan took the first set and was leading by 5-3 in the second when Hopkins came back to win the match 1-6, 7-5, 6-2.

Greek drama to serve as opener
By PATRICK MILES
29may00

PARIS: It is to be hoped that the French Open, which begins at Roland Garros today, is saving some of its
heavy ammunition for the closing stages of the event.

The danger is that much of the fireworks will be spent in the first round, when Australia's high-powered Mark
Philippoussis takes on the second seed, Pete Sampras, the grand slam-dunker from the United
States.

Expect a starburst of intense proportions, and the possibility of a subsequent anti-climax, when the two
giants of the court face off in the big Greek derby.

They will be serving great chunks out of the clay – a surface they would both prefer to skirt – in an effort to
impose their will on each other.

Sampras, requiring one more grand slam singles title to overtake the record of 12 he shares with Roy
Emerson, would have expected his opening match here to be a prolonged test against some lowly
clay-court specialist.

He would not have anticipated an encounter with a man who possesses one of the most
attacking styles in the game.

Sampras might be wondering whether he has fallen out of the simmering pan and into the fire.

Both players will fancy their chances, the American possibly believing that a do-or-die confrontation with Philippoussis is preferable to a meeting with a baseline interrogator.

As Sampras said over the weekend, any one of 30 players has a chance of winning the men's
singles title. He did not reveal, however, if he included himself, or Philippoussis, among them.

Philippoussis is aware of the fact that if anyone has had a less adequate build-up to the French
Open than himself, it is his first opponent. Since returning from a thigh injury in Hamburg a
fortnight ago, the Wimbledon champion has played five matches on clay for just two victories.

Philippoussis began his clay-court season in Monte Carlo, where he lost in the first round, he
made the second round in Rome, then lost to his Davis Cup team-mate, Lleyton Hewitt, in
Hamburg.

Sampras represented the United States in the World Team Championship in Dusseldorf last
week, while Philippoussis elected to practise and train. The last time the Victorian played a
competitive match, against Hewitt, he said afterwards he was already looking forward to the
grass-court season.

It was at Wimbledon last year that Philippoussis established his dominance over Sampras in the
quarter-finals before the Australian, who won the first set, was forced to retire with a knee injury.
Sampras carried on to capture his sixth crown, beating countryman Andre Agassi, who is the
defending champion here.

When the draw for the season's second grand slam tournament was made on Friday, the last
match of the 64 on the list caused grown men to tremble. "I nearly died," was Hewitt's reaction
when he noted who Philippoussis had been matched against.

Hewitt's first thought, however, was for his own match against the American Jeff Tarango, who is
as much a danger to himself as to opposing players.

If Hewitt, the No.9 seed, can successfully negotiate his first few rounds, if he can reach the
second week, of which there is a strong possibility, he is scheduled to meet Thomas Enqvist in a
quarter-final. The Swede, who is nursing a sore wrist, was one of the South Australian's victims in
Rome en route to the semi-finals.

Hewitt, who lost in the first round here last year and is seeded at a grand slam tournament for the
first time, described Tarango as "a little bit of a surprise packet, really".

"Anything could happen," he said. "The big thing for me is to stay very tough early in the match. I
think once I can get on top of him, then I've got a really good chance.

"I'm going in there with the attitude of just taking one match at a time."

In the women's event, Jelena Dokic, who is in the same section of the draw as two of the
favourites in Monica Seles and France's Amelie Mauresmo, meets Slovenia's Tina Pisnik, playing
in the tournament for the first time.

Dokic found encouraging form in Rome recently, defeating the American Venus Williams easily,
then taking a set off Seles, who continued on to win the title.

Is Sampras a clay pigeon?
By LINDA PEARCE

The news was broken to Team Philippoussis within minutes of the completion of Friday's French Open draw. Mark Philippoussis was practising with Argentinian Hernan Gumy on an outside Roland Garros court when a Canadian journalist approached his coach Gavin Hopper.

"Guess who you've drawn?''

"Agassi?''

"No, Sampras.''

"Sampras? That's OK.''

From a tournament point of view, not just OK, but a dream round-one blockbuster. From Pete Sampras' point of view, not so much OK as a worrying danger match against perhaps the draw's most dangerous non-seed. For Philippoussis, who led the American by a set on his pet surface, grass, the last time they played before being forced out by a knee injury, it was more OK than any draw against an elite clay-courter.

Sampras, seeking to break his 12-title tie with joint grand slam record-holder Roy Emerson, is the winner of six Wimbledon, four US, two Australian and no French Open titles. Since resuming two weeks ago from a strained quadricep, the second seed has won two matches and lost three on his least-favored surface. In 10 visits to Roland Garros, he has figured in just one semi-final, for one loss.

In fact, Sampras was recently asked whether he had considered skipping the clay season altogether and heading straight for England's grass. He said he had not, but admitted a change of mindset was required. "The courts at Paris can be quick, the conditions can be quick, and I've just got to let go of the pressure I put on myself and just play like I would be playing the other grand slams,'' he said.

It was at another grand slam, the 1996 Australian Open, that Sampras played a young Williamstown lad who shares his own Greek heritage. Philippoussis won that night, quite astonishingly in straight sets, yet has tasted success just once in the pair's eight other matches, and that in the quasi-exhibition of the World Team Cup in Dusseldorf a year later.

The only signific-ance of that result was that it came on clay, in the pair's only meeting on the slow red dirt. Sampras has won the past four, although could count himself lucky to survive the latest, as Philippoussis led by a set and held a break point in their Wimbledon quarter-final when he twisted his left knee stretching for a forehand return and was forced to default.

As his ranking has slipped to 25th, Philippoussis' best results since his return from surgery in October have been in December's Davis Cup final and in defending his San Jose title in February, soon after splitting with co-coach Pat Cash. His best Roland Garros effort was a fourth-round appearance in 1997 and this season has not been kind or overly impressive so far.

Four lead-up tournaments have brought a sole win over Marc Rosset, although the cause is not as grim as it would appear. In between less forgiveable losses to Wayne Ferreira and Jeff Tarango, he fell in the Italian Open to claycourt master Gustavo Kuerten, and in a tight match against Lleyton Hewitt the following week in Hamburg. If he can maintain his patience and control, there is a good chance Sampras' annual dose of Parisian misery will arrive early.

Australia's other main chance, Lleyton Hewitt, is in the draw's top half and defending champion Andre Agassi's quarter, starting out with what should be a routine victory over the loud-mouthed Tarango. Hewitt is the only man to win three titles this year, and his 31-6 win-loss record is second only to the redhot Magnus Norman, the leader of the ATP Tour's inaugural points race.

The flipside is that his experience on clay is limited, as was Friday's performance against Yevgeny Kafelnikov in Dusseldorf. "I just struggled right from the start,'' said Hewitt, who won just three games against a player he led 3-0 in career matches. "I couldn't get anything going, but it was probably

better that happened today than in three or four days time.''

Heading the list of favorites in an extremely open field are Agassi, winner of three of the past four grand slam titles but more recently afflicted by indifferent form and hamstring problems, fifth seed Kuerten and Europeans Norman, Cedric Pioline, Alex Corretja and Marat Safin.

"This tournament asks the most of you physically, of all the slams, so I've got to hope that my fitness comes through for me again, like it did last year,'' Agassi said. "But there are a lot of guys that are hungry and a lot playing well.''

The last Australian winner was Rod Laver in 1969, and the sole Aussie to win a grand slam singles title in more than two decades, Pat Rafter, is given virtually no chance of success in his first best-of-five set tournament since his February return from shoulder surgery.

Rafter opens against Italian veteran Gianluca Pozzi but, as a consequence of his unaccustomed unseeded status, is then likely to run into the sixth-ranked Pioline on his home court, with Safin and the prospect of either Norman or the dangerous Dominik Hrbaty still ahead in the toughest section of the men's draw. The winner would then probably face Agassi in a semi-final.

That is way too far ahead for Rafter to contemplate, for he has won just one of his five matches in the past three weeks. He may be one other player who can't wait for the grasscourt season to begin.

It may not be long, just as for either Sampras or Philippoussis, their claycourt swansong is only one match away. At least that will mean some extended practice for a Wimbledon tournament that form and history suggest both participants in the French Open's marquee first-round match seem better equipped to win.