BRIEFLY : SAMPRAS HELPS U.S. AT WORLD TEAM CUP.

Byline: - Daily News Wire Services

Yet to win a title this year and warming up for the French Open, Pete Sampras helped the United States sweep Slovakia on Wednesday at the World Team Cup at Duesseldorf, Germany.

Sampras, who has lost his No. 1 ranking to Yevgeny Kafelnikov, defeated Karol Kucera 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 6-2 in an event leading to next week's clay-court major in Paris, the only Grand Slam tournament he has not won.

The $1.65 million tournament features the top eight teams, which compete in two groups. The group winners advance to the final. The United States and Australia are both 2-0. The Aussies downed France 3-0, getting singles victories from Patrick Rafter and Mark Philippoussis.

Lindsay Davenport won her first match after being out two months with a wrist injury, defeating Spain's Gala Leon 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 at the Madrid Open. Davenport, the top seed, is tuning up for next week's French Open, where she is the second seed.

BASEBALL: College Baseball - USA Today Baseball Weekly announced its All-America team, and USC was represented by two players on the first team. Neither is Eric Munson. Munson, the Trojans' top catching prospect who missed 21 games, was snubbed by Baseball Weekly. USC senior outfielder Jason Lane (.365 batting average, 19 home runs, 66 RBI) was a first-team pick, as was Trojans junior left-hander Barry Zito (11-2, 3.46 ERA, 141 strikeouts). Pepperdine reliever Jay Gehrke, a junior with 18 saves, was also a first-team selection.

MOTOR SPORTS: The Indy Racing League might put tethers on its wheels to try to keep them from flying off and endangering fans, a spokesman said. Championship Auto Racing Teams, its major rival, announced over the weekend it will tether front wheels to the chassis in its cars starting with its next race, the Motorola 300 on May 29 in Madison, Ill. Formula One, the other major racing circuit with open-wheel cars, mandated tethers on all four wheels at the start of this season.

The Chicago Tribune will not cover this year's Indianapolis 500 to protest the barring of a Sports Illustrated writer from the event. The Indy Racing League denied credentials for the May 30 race to Ed Hinton of SI. IRL officials were angered by a photo of a sheet-covered body and accompanying story that appeared in SI's May 10 issue after three fans were killed May 1 at the VisionAire 500 in Concord, N.C.

BOXING: WBC super featherweight champion Floyd Mayweather was supposed to meet Goyo Vargas on the undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya-Oba Carr welterweight title fight, but Vargas pulled out because of illness. A substitute is being sought.

FOOTBALL: The NFL's finance committee voted unanimously to recommend that the Washington Redskins be sold for a record $800 million to Daniel Snyder, 34, head of Snyder Communications Inc. in Bethesda, Md.

TRACK AND FIELD: The International Amateur Athletic Federation, the governing body for world track, set up a three-man panel to study Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson's petition for his lifetime drug ban to be lifted.