SAMPRAS WARMS TO THE TASK : DEFENDING CHAMP SURVIVES ON COLD DAY; ONLY FIVE MEN'S SEEDS LEFT FOR ROUND OF 16.

Byline: Robin Finn The New York Times

On a day so cold and blustery that he ``hardly broke a sweat,'' Pete Sampras, Wimbledon's three-time defending champion, decided he did not want to risk frostbite and a fifth set in his third-round match against 107th-ranked Karol Kucera.

So Sampras, as if he were poolside on a summer day, performed a swan dive of a backhand volley to tie his fourth-set tiebreaker at 3-3, and never lost another point on a day when the temperature never surpassed 60 degrees and chilly winds gusted up to 35 mph.

``It wasn't a great day for tennis,'' Sampras deadpanned after Saturday's 6-4, 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-3) victory averted the upset this Grand Slam event can ill afford. ``I got through it, and it wasn't pretty, but it's just one of those matches where you want to get through and stick around here.''

On the men's side, just five seeded players have managed to reach the round of 16, a predicament Wimbledon has not endured since 1971. The latest to depart were 11th-seeded Wayne Ferreira and 14th-seeded Marc Rosset, whose rocket serve fizzled against Patrick Rafter, who beat him 4-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3.

The day's only seeded woman to lose was fifth-seeded Anke Huber. She entered her match against 29th-ranked Ai Sugiyama with an upset stomach and came away from it upset from head to toe by a 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 defeat in which she hit seven double faults and was less than 50 percent effective with her shots from her usual stronghold, the baseline.

Of the anonymous crew of nobodies who fashioned the men's upsets, only the 62nd-ranked Tim Henman, the player who downed French Open champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the first round, has already become a somebody. But not in the estimation of 13th-seeded Todd Martin, the only remaining seeded player on the bottom half of the draw and Henman's potential quarterfinal opponent.

Asked if he was worried by the prospect of facing Henman, Martin - who beat Renzo Furlan, 7-6 (7-1), 6-4, 6-2 - pretended to cringe.

``What am I, a ball of fear? Terrified? I don't think so,'' he said. ``He's going to be a great player, but I really hope the people don't put too much pressure on him.''

Actually, around these hallowed parts, the 21-year-old Henman was always a potential somebody, and has the pedigree to prove it.

The chain of command began with his great-grandmother, Ellen Mary Stawell-Brown, who was the first female daredevil to serve overhanded at Wimbledon, and who defeated a five-time champion, Charlotte ``Chatty'' Cooper in the process.

Stawell-Brown's daughter, Susan, now 84, was the last woman to serve underhanded at Wimbledon, and she played that way on the family's home court until she quit at 81.

Henman's mother, Jane, played junior Wimbledon, and his grandfather, Henry Billington, competed here and on the British Davis Cup team in the 1940s.

``I think they're probably proud of what I'm doing, sort of following in my grandparents' and my great-grandmother's footsteps,'' Henman said Saturday after defeating a British qualifier, Luke Milligan, 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 in the first match on Centre Court between an all-English pair since 1938.

Henman had little difficulty subduing Milligan, a North London cabdriver's son: Their match was suspended by rain on Friday night with Henman poised to serve for his spot in the final 16. The victory left him one match short of becoming the first British man to reach the quarterfinals since 1973.

Last year was horrendous for Henman, who lost in the second round and was ejected from the event in disgrace for slamming a ball girl in the forehead with a ball he struck in a fit of anger during a doubles match. This year that same ball girl, mollified by the flowers the mortified player delivered after the incident, has become one of his biggest fans.

``There's been more attention than I'm used to, and maybe than I would expect, but that's probably part of the parcel; I don't like it, I don't dislike it,'' said the 21-year-old Henman, who broke his leg on a grass court three years ago and still carries three pins in it.

Henman's 155 pounds are thinly strung along a 6-foot-1 frame, but said: ``You only have to look at somebody like Stich or Ivanisevic to see that to have a big game you don't necessarily need a big physique.''

Already reminded that he has a chance to do what no British man has done since Fred Perry won here in 1936, Henman refused to look beyond his next opponent who, like him, isn't seeded: Magnus Gustafsson. The 37th-ranked Swede was a 7-6 (7-4), 7-5, 1-6, 5-7, 6-1 winner over Ferreira, the moody South African who was reduced to racquet-tossing and racquet-bouncing by the time Gustafsson calmly served out the match.

The defending women's champion, Steffi Graf, defeated Nicole Arendt of Princeton, N.J., 6-2, 6-1 in 41 minutes. Graf appeared to have no qualms about her fourth-round assignment, either. Martina Hingis handed Graf her only loss at a tour event this year, but the 27-year-old German said what happened was an aberration.

WIMBLEDON AT A GLANCE

Men: Third round - No. 1 Pete Sampras, No. 4 Goran Ivanisevic, No. 10 Michael Stich, No. 13 Todd Martin and No. 16 Cedric Pioline all advanced.

Women: Third round - No. 1 Steffi Graf, No. 3 Conchita Martinez, No. 6 Jana Novotna, No. 12 Kimiko Date and No. 13 Mary Pierce all advanced.

Upsets: Magnus Gustafsson beat No. 11 Wayne Ferreira, Patrick Rafter beat No. 14 Marc Rosset, and Ai Sugiyama beat No. 5 Anke Huber.

Stat of the day: Ferreira served 16 aces and Gustafsson had none, but Gustafsson won the match.

Quote of the day: ``I played a little clay-court tennis, so it sounds stupid.'' - Gustafsson, on the baseline tactics he used to upset Ferreira.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: Stomach medicine was no cure for ailing No. 5 s eed Anke Huber, who lost to Ai Sugiyama.

Associated Press

Box: WIMBLEDON AT A GLANCE (see text)