BRIEFLY : CAMPBELL GETS FIRED AS COACH OF RANGERS.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Colin Campbell fell victim Wednesday to the inept play of the NHL's highest-paid team when he was fired as coach of the New York Rangers less than a year after he took them to the Stanley Cup semifinals.

No successor was chosen, although the leading candidates appeared to be John Muckler, the former Edmonton coach, and E.J. McGuire, coach of the Rangers' American Hockey League affiliate in Hartford, Conn.

The Rangers are 17-24-16 and six points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference despite a payroll of $44 million, highest in NHL history. But the team also is the oldest in the league and lacks speed and size.

TENNIS: Showing no signs of the knee injury that threatened to end her career, Steffi Graf made a successful singles comeback. In her first singles match in 8-1/2 months, Graf defeated German compatriot Andrea Glass 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of the $450,000 Faber Grand Prix in Hamburg, Germany.

Petr Korda continued his winning ways, defeating Spain's Albert Portas 7-5, 6-2 and moving into the quarterfinals of the $1 million European Community Championship in Antwerp, Belgium.

Also advancing to the final eight was Sweden's Magnus Larsson, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over Dutchman Jan Siemerink.

Defending champion and No. 2 seed Michael Chang used a strong baseline game to defeat Daniel Nestor 6-4, 6-4 at the St. Jude Indoor in Memphis.

BOXING: A left-wrist injury has forced a second postponement of Oscar De La Hoya's mandatory WBC welterweight championship fight against Patrick Charpentier of France. A new date was not announced for the fight, which had been rescheduled to March 14 in the Trump Taj Mahal at Atlantic City, N.J. It originally was postponed from Feb. 28 because of the injury De La Hoya suffered while sparring.

BASKETBALL: Grady Lewis, who developed the low-cut canvas sneaker, has been nominated for election to the Basketball Hall of Fame by the veterans committee. Also nominated: Arnie Risen, a slick and quick center during the NBA's early days.

Carmichael Auditorium at North Carolina used to rock with chants of ``Go Heels!'' Well, they're gone. During the weekend, someone cut away two 3-foot-square chunks of the hardwood floor where Michael Jordan once played. The floor sections were corner pieces with white Tar Heel footprints on a Carolina-blue background.

The theft occurred just two weeks after Jordan's oversized No. 23 jersey vanished from the rafters of the Dean Smith Center.