PETER SAMPRAS may have a little more company than usual when he sets off for the All England Club this afternoon. The local council and a charity or two are bound to take an interest in him now that, as a big name who is still involved in this year's Wimbledon, he enjoys endangered species status.

The breed was pushed even closer to extinction yesterday with the demise of Sampras's $ main rival, Boris Becker, whose third round match against Neville Godwin lasted just 58 minutes before the second seed made for the showers, from where, after a brief stopover, it would be on to the hospital.

Unlike his defeated rivals, however, the 28 year old world number four had not gone down to an embarrassing loss against a man who sits well below him - in this case some 219 places - on the ranking ladder. How he must have wished that was all that had befallen him. Rather he had suffer what was suspected to be a broken wrist after playing a service return awkwardly towards the end of the first set with the result that his entire summer rather than simply his championship may have been brought to a premature conclusion.

Unfortunately there are only so many surprises that are good for a tournament and while there had been excitement surrounding the losses suffered by Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, Jim Courier and, on an otherwise quiet day for the tournament, Stefan Edberg, there was no doubting that with the forced departuer of Becker from the yesterday's third round these championships had suffered a major blow.

He said himself afterwards, with more than a hint of understatement, that "I was one of the few who had a real chance of winning this, the draw didn't look too bad and I was playing great tennis". Not a word of a lie from the German and no question whatsoever but that the draw looks a great deal less attractive with "6-6 ret'd" pencilled in beside his name.

It is all the more disappointing because the afternoon had actually started fairly well for the second seed. He was moving nicely about the court and looking strong against the young - South African early on. Twice, midway through the set, he broke his opponent's serve only for the 21 year old to bounce back and although it was taking the German a bit of time to come to terms with the qualifier's tendency to take the pace off the ball by slicing at it, he did really look any more strained than he had done on the way to two comfortable wins earlier in the week.

Come time for the tiebreak to decide the first set, however, and everything suddenly went terribly wrong for the three times champion. For the very first point Godwin served to the German's forehand but, mistiming his return slightly, Becker caught the ball with the frame of his racket and, he said, "heard something pop." It quickly became clear that it had been the sound of his title aspirations deserting him.

"I've had a lot of juries in my career and I know when an injury is serious and when it's something that can heal in a few days," the 28 year old told reporters afterwards. "When this happened I thought I'd broken my wrist."

The tournament trainer promptly came to pretty much the same conclusion when he was called in to give some assistance but, having had the wrist strapped, Becker took a couple of practice serves before finally deciding that there was no way that he was fit to continue.

"An injury never comes at a good time but if there is one tournament that I really hate to miss it is Wimbledon," said the man whose recently improved form had already brought him the Australian Open, but who had missed the French Open with a thigh strain.

"It's harder, too, because I will not have a better chance to win here," he said yesterday. "But that's all part of the deal," he added stoically. "I'm an athlete and at the end it all evens out. You have periods of luck and periods when luck isn't on your side. I've just had a bad time this year."

Godwin, on the other hand, who experienced some disappointment himself here - he failed to live up to his billing as top seed in the junior singles a couple of years ago - was having a season's worth of good fortune in one afternoon.

In front of his parents, who had arrived from Johannesburg yesterday morning, he had made his way to the fourth round of these championships, where he will now meet either Alex Radulescu or David Wheaton, a contest which the Romanian led by two sets to one when rain forced them to defer its conclusion until today.

Overall, though Becker's exit means that Todd Martin and Godwin's countryman, Wayne Ferreira, are the only two seeds left in the bottom half of the draw and if the two of them survive that far, which is by no means certain, they will meet in the quarter finals, allowing at least one unseeded player a clear run to the semi finals.

With anyone reaching the last four guaranteed at least £98,000 the stakes are far higher than these men had any reason to expect, but it is in the other semifinal that the really big prize will now almost certainly be decided. A victory for Goran Ivanisevic should bring an early answer to all of his prayers.