Grass Is Not Answer for Sliding Sampras

Pete Sampras hopes the scene of his greatest triumphs will help revive his sliding career.

His latest try to halt the slump that has dropped him out of the top 10 for the first time since 1990 ended in a 6-4, 6-3 loss Thursday to Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer at the Gerry Weber Open.

It was a premature end to Sampras’ grass-court preparations for Wimbledon, where he hopes the revival will begin in less than two weeks.

“It brings back some good memories, some fortunate moments,” Sampras said of Wimbledon. “Hopefully it’ll happen again.”

Sampras acknowledged that his 66-minute loss to the 64th-ranked Kiefer was a huge disappointment.

“It was a big week for me, I needed to reach the final,” he said.

Switzerland’s Roger Federer advanced to the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-4 rout of Germany’s David Prinosil.

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Top-seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia was sharp in beating Belgium’s Olivier Rochus, 6-2, 6-1, to reach the quarterfinals of the Queen’s Club grass-court tournament at London.

Britain’s Tim Henman beat wild card Robby Ginepri, 6-1, 6-2, and Todd Martin defeated Xavier Malisse of Belgium, 7-5, 6-3. Martin will next face Hewitt.

Jan-Michael Gambill lost, 7-6 (4), 1-6, 6-4, to Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands.

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Top-seeded Jelena Dokic reached the quarterfinals of the DFS Classic grass-court tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Elena Likhovtseva at Birmingham, England.

Sixth-seeded Anastasia Myskina rallied to beat Alexandra Stevenson, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

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The U.S. Open increased prize money to $16.174 million for this year’s Aug. 26-Sept. 8 event.

Men’s and women’s winners each will get $900,000, up from $850,000 last year. The 2001 purse totaled $15.76 million.