TOP seed Pete Sampras brushed former champion Ivan Lendl aside at the

Australian Open Tennis Championships in Melbourne yesterday . . . but

refused to dismiss his opponent as a spent force.

Sampras rallied from a break down in the first and third sets to

subdue Lendl 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 in a Centre Court fourth-round battle lasting

two hours and 20 minutes.

The scoreline slightly flattered 22-year-old Sampras, but for the

second weekend in a row Lendl failed to take a set off his younger

rival. The 33-year-old winner of the 1989 and 1990 Australian Opens lost

7-6, 6-4 to Sampras in the final of the New South Wales Open eight days

ago.

''If I was him, I would keep going,'' said Sampras, who believes the

former world No.1, now ranked seventeenth in the world, can still test

the game's elite.''

Defending champion Jim Courier rounded off a busy day by thumping

South African Wayne Ferreira 6-3,

6-4, 6-2 and now faces Goran Ivanisevic, who dismissed South African

Grant Stafford 6-3, 6-2, 7-6.

In the women's singles, Steffi Graf defeated France's Sandrine Testud

6-1, 6-2 and was joined in the last eight by Japan's Kimiko Date, who

disposed of American Ginger Helgeson 7-5, 6-1.

* HEATHER Lockhart upset the rankings yesterday when she recorded her

second win in 11 months over Scottish No.1 Michele Mair to win the

women's singles at the LTA Winter Series at the Gannochy Centre,

Stirling.

Mair seemed to have the final under control, racing to a 6-1, 2-0

lead. But the resilient Lockhart broke back in the fourth game and won

the second set tie break by 7-3. The Newlands player survived three

match points in the tenth game of the third set, and another on the

twelfth point of the tie-break before recording a marathon 1-6, 7-6, 7-6

victory in just more than three hours.

Ken Wood justified his top seeding when he retained the men's title

without dropping a set, defeating Graham Alston of Giffnock by 7-5, 6-1.