TENNIS/Wimbledon Championships: SEED ROT. It travelled around SW19 like a contagion. First, second seed Marat Safin - a full 11 inches taller than his opponent Olivier Rochus - fell. Next, seven-time champion and sixth seed Pete Sampras packed his bags. And, finally - just as the draw was readjusting to the demise of those two heavy weights - third seed Andre Agassi followed with a straight-set defeat to Thailand's Paradorn Srichaphan.

In all, seven seeds fatally caught yesterday's bug.

"I'm a little stunned. I played a very average match out there against a guy who took it to me," said Agassi.

"I'm discouraged. To come up empty here is pretty, pretty discouraging," said Sampras.

"Whatever I did, it was wrong," said the lugubrious Safin as the remainder of the draw licked their collective lips.

Safin, although top dog of the three, has often hidden his talents under brooding frustration and airborn racquets and, although his departure was unforeseen, his tendency has been to occasionally fracture.

Agassi simply never settled in against Srichaphan, who lost in the opening round at Wimbledon for the past two years. He also lost his first round at Queens this year so the shock was seismic.

"I never settled," said Agassi. "I wasn't seeing the ball or picking it up well. It was flying off my racquet and I was worried about controlling it. Then when I'd lay off, he'd step up with his game. He was serving big and taking his chances."

A service break in the first set handed Srichaphan a foothold and when he took the second in a tie-break, Agassi's hill had become a mountain. Srichaphan sensed the discomfort and Agassi's odd lack of focus. The third-ranked player in the world collapsed 6-2. Agassi, at 32, is running out of time. But he won't disappear just yet.

"This is where it all happens," he said. "Sure, I'll come back." With Sampras, it was the lifeless manner of his defeat that was shocking.

It was as unimpressive a departure as any for the 30-year-old against George Bastl, a player who only stuck his foot in the door of the competition on Sunday when Felix Mantilla withdrew with a knee injury.

It was the least proficient match Sampras has played on grass since he began competing at Wimbledon - the five-set 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4 defeat the first time since 1991 that he has gone out in the second round.

Unimpressed with his game being played on court two - the reputed graveyard of champions - Sampras stubbornly refused to concede that there is no longer a Wimbledon title within him.

Last year, fractures began to appear and he reached the fourth round. Before that, he won seven out of eight championships.

Almost unable to take in the defeat, Sampras sat at the side of the court, his head hanging.

"I feel I can still go out there and do it. Not maybe as dominant as I once was, but I believe I can win here, the US Open or the others.

"I wasn't happy about court two. I'd rather have played him somewhere where I'm more comfortable.

"But it's still a tennis court, still the same dimensions."

For Bastl, it was a day of firsts. His first big scalp, his first five-set match. His first-round win over Denis Golovanov also gave him his first tour level win of 2002.

He had only played three other tour level events and lost in the first round in all of them.

He has competed in nine challenger events, the level below tour level, with his best showing a quarter-final finish in January.

But the Swiss player broke serve twice in the first set and twice in the second for a 6-3, 6-2 lead before Sampras crept back in, just one break for 6-4 and two breaks in the fourth set to level the match. Finally, Bastl plundered a weak Sampras serve in the ninth game before holding for 6-4 and the match.

Safin, who lost last year in the quarter-final to eventual winner Goran Ivanisevic, just played lousy - losing 6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7/1). The head went in the hands, the racquet tumbled around the court and he kicked imaginary demons about the grass.

A normal day at the office for the Russian but another shred of evidence for the prosecution. His temperament is again in the dock.

"Bad day. I mean, it happens. You try to do everything and you just miss by centimetres all the time, very important points. You cannot do anything," said Safin.

Between the three top players, 21 Grand Slam titles departed yesterday.