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Sampras, Rafter face stiff test

Pete Sampras will have to get past dangerous Russian Marat Safin if he hopes to dominate the 14.5- million-dollar U.S. Open Tennis championships, which begins on Monday.

The top-seeded American is working towards earning a 13th Grand Slam title, which would set a new record. Sampras has earned four titles in New York and is seeded for a possible meeting in the final against on-again, off-again rival Andre Agassi. Sampras is currently trying to cure a hip flexor injury suffered last week.

Assuming he reaches the second round, the 28-year-old could face either Czech Jiri Novak or Ramon Delgado, the Paraguayan player who put him out of the 1998 French Open.

Women's top seed Martina Hingis will be wanting to forget about the last time she played in the first round of a Grand Slam. The Swiss teenager was beaten in her opening match at Wimbledon by Australian Jelena Dokic. The loss, which followed a defeat in the final of the French Open just a fortnight earlier, turned the Hingis game on its ear. She has pulled together over the course of hardcourt warm-ups in north America.

Hingis begins with Czech Kveta Hrdlickova, and could then tangle with either an American wild card or France's Sarah Pitkowski, neither expected to trouble the 1997 holder.

Second seed Lindsay Davenport starts the defence of the first Grand Slam title she ever claimed - Wimbledon was the second - against fellow-American Corina Morariu.

Third-seeded Venus Williams and sister Serena, the tournament number 7, were drawn into opposite halves, helping to ease their fast-building psychosis of playing each other in the same event. Any long-shot meeting between the siblings could only come in the final.

Venus begins against a qualifier; Serena starts with a match against compatriot Kimberly Po, who holds a 1-0 record against the seed.

Men's number 2 Andre Agassi, the French Open champion and a revitalised force once again in the game, plays Swede Nicklas Kulti in the opening round.

Third-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the Australian Open holder, starts low-key against Spanish clay-courter Alberto Martin, while two-time New York winner Pat Rafter of Australia, is, like Sampras, trying to get fit in time for Monday's start. The Australian quit last week in Indianapolis to let shoulder tendinities try to heal.

The fourth seed begins his run at a possible hat-trick at Flushing Meadows against Frence's Cedric Pioline, the 1993 U.S. Open finalist. Sampras is top seed for the fifth time, levelling with John McEnroe, who held it from 1981 to 1985. The American ended a 24-match win streak when he pulled out of Indianapolis last week with his hip worry.

UNI