The American who crashed out 6-1, 6-1 in the second round of the clay court Mercedes Super 9 event to Frenchman Fabrice Santoro took back the top spot from Chile's Marcelo Rios. Sampras had not lost that badly since April 1990.

Due to the vagaries of an ATP Tour ranking system which is to be revised into a simple format in 2000, Sampras is now entering his 219th week atop the table. He first took over the position on April 12, 1993 and remained there for the last five years.

But the top man in the world must again beware this week. Czech world number two Petr Korda, who has failed on four chances in the past two months to take over the top spot could get his fifth opportunity this week.

Korda, a Monte Carlo quarter-finalist, is top seed at Prague and trails Sampras by just 133 points. If the Americanloses early on green clay in Atlanta this week, Korda could be number one for the first time in his career next Monday. The 30-year-old Korda's necessary objective -- win the title at his home event. Rios has been pushed to the third spot, ahead of Australian Pat Rafter and 106 better than number five Greg Rusedski of Britain. Rios had ended the 102-week reign of Sampras on March 30 by winning at Key Biscayne, but fell back when an inflamed left elbow prevented him from defending his title last week at Monte Carlo.

Sampras, 16-5 this year, is top seed at the AT & T Challenger, which began yesterday at Duluth, Georgia with second seed and 1997 runner-up Jason Stoltenberg of Australia beating Peru's Luis Horna 6-3 6-4.

Tennis-AT&T Challenge

Stoltenberg is sandwiched in the seedings by two Americans, No 1 Sampras and No 3 Jim Courier, who drew most of the attention leading to the $340,000 tournament. Two seeded players were upset on the first day of the tournament, being held at the suburban AtlantaAthletic Club.

Dennis van Scheppingen of The Netherlands defeated No 4 American Vincent Spadea 6-3 4-6 7-5, while Belgium's Johan van Herck cruised past No 7 Gianluca Pozzi of Italy 6-2 6-4. No 8 Wayne Black of Zimbabwe bounced back from an opening-set loss to beat American Jared Palmer 4-6 6-2 6-1.

Henman rallies

MUNICH: Briton Tim Henman collected his thoughts after losing the second set and stormed back to defeat German challenger Jens Knippschild 6-4 4-6 6-1 to reach the second round of the $525,000 BMW Open here.

The fourth seed from London made up for last week's opening round loss on clay in Monte Carlo as he improved his game on Knippschild, ranked 122 on the ATP Tour list.

Henman plays second-round match against Swede Thomas Nydal, who beat Christian Vinck of Germany 7-5 2-6 6-3, yesterday.

Third seed Gustavo Kuerten, the French Open champion, continued the misery for Goran Ivanisevic, sending the slumping Croatian out in the first round 6-4 7-6 (8-6).

Holder MarkPhilippoussis spent less than an hour in renewing his clay court superiority over Spaniard Julian Alonso. Philippousis earned a 7-5 6-4 win into the second round.