The French Open continues at Roland Garros with some of the favorites being eliminated. Brazil’s Gustavo Kuerten lost to Ukrainian Andrei Medvedev, who also beat Pete Sampras earlier in the tournament. Spain’s clay-specialist Alex Corretja lost to Fernando Meligeni, also from Brazil. Meligeni and Medvedev meet in one semifinal, Andre Agassi meets Slovak Dominik Hrbaty in the other.

In the women’s tournament, German veteran Steffi Graf beat Lindsay Davenport from the United States in the quarter final Tuesday. Graf meets Monica Seles in one semifinal, in the other one Swiss Martina Hingis meets another veteran, Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.

In Italy, home favorite Marco Pantani has taken over the lead in cycling race Giro d’Italia. Pantani is 44 seconds in front of fellow Italian Paolo Savoldelli. The race concludes June 6.

In England, the cricket World Cup enters the “Super Six” stage this weekend. Pakistan, Australia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, New Zealand and India are all qualified while the home favorite was eliminated in the initial stages of the tournament. Reigning champions Sri Lanka did not make it past the first round either.

Egypt hosts the handball world championship. The home team started the tournament by beating Brazil 28-19 Tuesday in front of 30,000 spectators. One of the favorites, Russia, beat Norway 35-27 while another favorite, Sweden, beat South Korea 25-20.

In English soccer, after Manchester United After won the UEFA Champions League last week, 700,000 people apparently showed up for a parade through the streets of downtown Manchester.

In the same city, Danish goalie Peter Schmeichel retired from professional soccer. His successor in United is Mark Bosnich from Australia, who transferred from Aston Villa earlier this week.

Also in soccer news, Ireland has refused to grant the players of the Yugoslav national team visas for the upcoming game between the two this coming weekend. The reason given is the current conflict in the Balkans. UEFA, the European soccer association, cancelled the game alltogether and said Ireland might be punished with such harsh measures as exclusion from this and future competitions.