WIMBLEDON, England -- It was over, and he wouldn't leave yet, adjusting racket strings as sweat poured down his face and the English summer sun shimmered on a bandbox called Court 2, graveyard of champions.

Finally, he raised himself and trudged across the scarred grass, head down, heavy black equipment bag hanging from a shoulder, a half-hearted wave to acknowledge the cheers, and then he was through a door and into the crowd, another Wimbledon done for Pete Sampras.

The best tennis player there ever was on grass lost a second-round five-setter to some 27-year-old Swiss journeyman named George Bastl yesterday, 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4.

Four-all in the fifth, Sampras time, and the seven-time Wimbledon champion was beaten, out-muscled in five minutes of tennis fury by an ex-hockey player with bow legs and a big forehand.

"This is not the way I'm going to end it here," Sampras, the sixth seed, said, his eyes welling with tears. "You know, I want to end it on a high note, and so I plan on being back."

Sampras wasn't the only shock loser yesterday.

Second seed Marat Safin of Russia was stunned by pint-sized Olivier Rochus of Belgium, 6-2, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (1) on a Centre Court transformed into the House of Upsets.

A few hours later, No. 3 Andre Agassi, the 1992 champion, played against Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand as the sun began to set and shadows danced across the lawn.

And then, Agassi was gone, a 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-2 loser.

"I'm a little stunned," Agassi said. "Certainly disappointed."

Sampras and Agassi, the Americans who battled each other around the globe over a decade, were out of Wimbledon before the first weekend.

It was sad but somehow inevitable, a changing of the tennis guard played out on the game's hallowed ground.

At 30, Sampras looked old, slow and done, like a guy who had hung around his sport too long but wasn't yet ready to admit the kids passed him by. Maybe he could rationalize last year's fourth-round loss to Roger Federer as a Wimbledon aberration.

But now, it looks like losing at Wimbledon is threatening to become a habit for Sampras.

"Guys are a little bit more confident against me," Sampras said. "I'm maybe not quite as sharp as I used to be. I'm just going to have to stop here and just kind of reflect a little bit but also not get too down. I mean, I still want to continue to play."

Bastl was the kind of player Sampras might have blitzed a year ago, a plugger with a lot of heart, a good return, but no real weapon to rattle a champ. Born in Chicago, the son of a hockey player who rattled around the Blackhawks minor-league system, Bastl also played hockey until he was 16 but then switched to tennis full time.

He got into the Wimbledon draw as a lucky loser, having been eliminated in the final round of a qualifying tournament but then getting into this field when another player withdrew. He won his first match on grass in the first round and then beat Sampras.

"It's a nice story," Bastl said.

Sampras started awkwardly, couldn't get his serve working and went down two sets. And then he slowed the match, took his time between points, read a letter from his wife during changeovers to try to focus.

Court 2 has taken other stars out in the past, and now it was closing in on Sampras.

"Yeah, I've been told that," Sampras said of the court's unofficial name as the graveyard of champions. "I've seen some upsets out there. It happened to me today."

But he was fighting, and it seemed to be working. He won two sets, evened the match, and was serving at 4-4 in the fifth when it all unraveled. Trying trying to save the break, Sampras lunged and smacked a backhand half-volley wide.

Bastl then served the legend out, as Sampras, holder of 13 Grand Slam championships, floated a final forehand long, freezing for a moment, then slumping his shoulders in defeat, recalling later how fast it had all gone.

"As predictable as I've been over the years here, you're going to have a match like this once every 10 years," Sampras said. "And it happened today ... disappointing ... fought hard to get back into the match.

"But it's going to be a tough flight home, a tough next couple of weeks, just knowing that this is going on and I'm not here," Sampras said.

Neither is Agassi, beaten by a decent player who served bigger than usual and whose ground strokes were as accurate as Agassi's were wide.

"Guys are bigger, stronger, faster," Agassi said in explaining in the early upsets. "Everybody takes their chance. Everybody hits the ball hard."

Where does he go now?

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't have anything on my schedule for the next two weeks."

Wimbledon is just getting started, and Sampras and Agassi are going home.