Wimbledon: No Kuerten

The world's top-ranked men's player will not be at Wimbledon.

As expected, French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten officially pulled out of the tournament Friday, citing an injury.

The Brazilian star, who won his third French Open title Sunday, previously had said that he planned to skip Wimbledon. He said Friday he had a sore groin and needed a rest.

But Kuerten also has complained about the seeding system at Wimbledon, saying it penalizes clay-court experts like him.

Wimbledon has said it will seed 32 players, instead of 16, but the order of the men's seedings will take into account grass-court records. The tournament begins June 25.

Jennifer Capriati is fatigued from her French Open victory and has withdrawn from a Wimbledon warmup tournament in the Netherlands next week.

Pete Sampras won two matches on the same day, defeating Jan Siemerink and Jan-Michael Gambill to reach the semifinals of the Queen's Club tournament at London. Sampras completed his rain-delayed match against Siemerink, winning 6-3, 6-4. He then defeated Gambill, 7-6 (1), 7-5, in a rain-delayed quarterfinal.

Sampras will play defending champion Lleyton Hewitt in a rematch of last year's final. Hewitt also had to win two matches, defeating Zimbabwe's Byron Black, 6-3, 6-2, and Britain's Greg Rusedski, 6-4, 6-4.

"I'm young enough for it, at least on grass," Sampras said. "I've never had that before, playing two matches, and it felt pretty good. I've got to be pretty pleased the way things went today."

Defending champion Lisa Raymond endured five hours of rain delays before winning her quarterfinal match against Russia's Elena Likhovtseva, 7-6 (5), 6-4, at the DFS Classic in Birmingham, England.

Meanwhile, one day after Alexandra Stevenson was defeated, her outspoken mother was in trouble with the Women's Tennis Assn. Samantha Stevenson ripped down a WTA display of newspaper reports, most of which related to her daughter's loss to Nathalie Tauziat on Thursday.

Patrick Rafter fought off match point and defeated Switzerland's Roger Federer, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4), to advance to the Gerry Weber Open semifinals at Halle, Germany. Top-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia defeated France's Nicolas Escude, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4).

Jurisprudence