AUSSIE OPEN NOTEBOOK

MELBOURNE, Jan 26 (AP): Petr Korda, the 1998 Australian Open champion, will fall to around 75th in the rankings following his third-round loss this year.

Korda climbed to No. 2 after winning his first Grand Slam event here last year at age 30. But he slumped later in the year and, at No. 20, was not seeded for this year's Australian. He lost in the third round to 15th-seeded Todd Martin.

Although he stayed home, citing fatigue, Pete Sampras won't lose his No. 1 ranking as a result. All the players with a chance of overtaking him now have lost or withdrawn. No. 2 Marcelo Rios pulled out with a back injury.

Also safe is Lindsay Davenport's No. 1 ranking on the women's Tour. Even if she wins the Australian, No. 2 Martina Hingis cannot gain enough points to overtake her.

On the men's side, Alex Corretja, a second-round loser here, will replace Rios at No. 2, the highest raking for a Spaniard since Manuel Orantes reached No. 2 in 1973.

Tenth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov can reach No. 3 by winning the title, or at least No. 5 by reaching the final.

Todd Martin, who reached No. 5 in 1994 but is seeded 15th here, can return to the top 10 by reaching the final.

Thomas Enqvist, who climbed to No. 6 in 1996, already is assured of a top 15 ranking after reaching the quarterfinals here. He now is ranked 21st.

PREENING FOR PIERCE: If some of her male fans want to wear dresses exactly like here while cheering her on at the Australian Open, that's fine with Mary Pierce.

"I like it when guys wear my dress," she said after beating another fan favorite, Anna Kournikova, in the fourth round Monday.

"It brings good atmosphere to the court, gets the crowd going. It's fun," Pierce said.

Sometimes she gets just as much fan support in France, she said, but "in France, guys don't wear dresses."

TALE OF THE TAPE: Known for her involuntary face-pulling and other on-court gestures, Pierce has been studying herself in action in an effort to iron out some of the idiosyncrasies, for which she has received bad press in France.

"I watched some videos of myself playing, it was a big laugh," said Pierce. A photo in an Australian newspaper illustrated her problem. She looked like she was sucking a lemon.

"I have made a big effort to eliminate them. At the beginning it was difficult but it gets easier the more you concentrate."

SPORT FIRST: WTA chief executive officer Bart McGuire is worried that the marketing of some women players is more about looks than their performance on the court.

"We're not in the business of what people in other industries call sexploitation," McGuire said.

He said he made no apology for women tennis players being attractive, but he agreed the style of support for players such as Russian teenager Anna Kournikova could at times be over the top.

"To me, attractive is a much broader word than just physically attractive," he said.

It was important to promote women not just in the sports pages to tennis fans, but also to people are interested in attractive, articulate, intelligent, talented and successful people, he said.