ANOTHER day, another bloodbath. That's what they say around SW19. Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic gone from the men's event and Steffi Graf under pressure from Kimiko Date in the women's. Well what did you expect? This is Wimbledon 1996 after all.

With Arantxa Sanchez Vicario waiting, Graf, of course, could still win the third set of her semifinal against Date and the women's draw would, basically, have sorted itself out after all of the early hiccups.

In the men's event, though, about as much sorting out as can possibly take place now is that the 13th seed will take on the 17th for the title. Show me the pundit who claims to have called this one all along and I'll show you someone harbouring a guilty conscience.

Time after time the stars have been toppled over the past two weeks. Yesterday was marked by the exit of top seed Sampras, his ambition of equalling Bjorn Borg's five consecutive titles lying in tatters on the damp grass of centre court by the end of a sets drubbing at the hands of Richard Krajicek. It also marked the demise of Ivanisevic, who lost in four to Jason Stoltenberg.

Local hero Tim Henman, meanwhile, finally met more than his match in the form of America's Todd Martin.

The departure of Sampras, of course, could hardly have been entirely unexpected after the way he had start.ed his quarter final against Krajicek on Wednesday afternoon. The manner in which the three times champion merely faded out of the match, however, was a considerable surprise.

Summing it up afterwards, the Dutchman asserted, entirely reasonably, that there were only the first four games in which Pete was the better player, after that I was always on top.

He admitted that after seeing Sampras come from two sets down to Jim Courier in Paris and a set and break down here in the first round he was "ready for anything", but he needn't have been. The three times champion put up no last ditch resistance, while Krajicek's remarkable serving he produced 29 aces overall and won just short of nine out of every 10 points off first serve kept him well on top through to the end.

For his part, Sampras still pointed to the break point he had had at 5-5 in the second set, saying "I thought that it (a back hand return) was good but the lady called it out and I have to live with that". But for that he claimed, it might have been a very different match.

It was good of him to let us know in the interview that there had been the possibility, however fleeting, of an alternative outcome to the contest, for there had been no hint whatsoever of it earlier from his play out on court.

He returned to the court almost. 24 hours after leaving it two sets down and level, after two games, in the third, but despite the opportunity to pull his game together, the 24 year old champion simply picked up where he had left off.

He was put under constant pressure on his serve and failed entirely to get to grips with his more aggressive and confident opponent who returned the ball better while displaying a more varied selection of shots.

The third set break that the 17th seed required came in the seventh game, when a poor second serve to the forehand at 30-40 allowed Krajicek to pass the American as he came to the net. From there on, each man held comfortably until the Dutchman made it three wins in his five meetings with the world number one by serving out to love in the 10th game. The set had lasted just 27 minutes while Sampras first defeat in four years had, from start to finish, taken less than two hours out on court.

Krajicek now faces Jason Stoltenberg for a place in the final after the Australian also held his nerve in a resumed match that he had held the upper hand in over night.

Goran Ivanisevic's opportunity to salvage his championship came soon after the restart when he had three break points in the second game of the fourth set, but from then on it all went serve. The Croat, as he had done in the third, played a terribly poor tie break which he lost to three to seal his fate.

Henman, meanwhile, a little less surprisingly, finally had his championships ended by Todd Martin. The 21 year old from Oxford was justifiably rueful, afterwards, about the combination of uncontrollable circumstances that had contributed to his fine run being concluded in three sets on what was, for the most part, a half empty Centre Court.

"You just have to look at the match as a whole with its one break to see that there were chances there that, unfortunately, I didn't take," he said. "It's tough to find any sort of rhythm when you are playing a couple of games band then coming off again but I had to deal with that and I gave it my best shot which just wasn't good enough, he added.

The Englishman showed brief flashes of the sort of inspirational play that had helped him through against the French Open champion last week but, in a match repeatedly interrupted by rain and played without anything like the contribution from the stands that had been so important in his previous wins, there simply wasn't the same edge to his approach.

In the opening set, Henman did earn a total of five break points in four difference games, but on each occasion the big American showed considerable character to extract himself from the hole he was in. Then, having allowed his opponent to surge into a 5-2 lead in the tie break, Henman clawed his way back to 5-5. However, as so often before, when the big shots were required, Martin's nerve proved to be the steadier, with the 13th seed producing an ace for set point and then making the first big breakthrough of the match when the Englishman double faulted.

After that, Martin, who had won the pair's only previous meeting at Queen's Club last year, tightened up his own game. He came to dominate the net to an even greater extent and, from a point midway through the opening set when less than a quarter of his first serves had gone in, rarely looked even vaguely threatened on his own service through the remainder of the match.

He took the second tie break more comfortably than the first, to two, and from the point he went a break up in the third he simply bided his time until he took it to four and secured a place in the semi finals, where he will face Malivai Washington.

In the women's semi finals, meanwhile, Steffi Graf must return to the Centre Court at 11.00 a.m. this morning to finish her match against Japan's Kimiko Date.

The top seed looked to be in firm control of the proceedings at one point last night when she took the opening set to two and led the second 2-0, but she then lost three tough service games in a row as Date, once again, fought her way back from behind.

Unfortunately for the 12th seed, who has proven to be a slow starter in both of her tough matches in these championships, the break due to poor light is unlikely to help her cause when she bids for only a second career victory over the title holder this morning.

The winner will meet Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. The Spaniard scored an easy win over America's Meredith McGrath. Carrying a strain for the past three weeks the 25 year old surprise semifinalist lost 6-2, 6-1 after compounding the injury and ending the match with enough strapping around her right leg to completely immobilise most normal human beings.