Pete Sampras heads the draw hoping to rebound his early exit from Memphis at the hands of his fellow American Chris Woodruff last week. Sampras, who has never done well here in Scottsdale, has a tough first round opponent in the charismatic Aussie, Andrew Ilie. Most assuredly a featured night match early in the week, Ilie may have to rethink his tradition of ripping off his shirt due to sometimes nippy evening temperatures if he upsets the top seed. Andre Agassi, a three-time champion and second seed here in Scottsdale, captured the first Grand Slam of the year in Australia but surprisingly lost to Brit Greg Rusedski in the Sybase Open final today. Agassi also faces a first-round test as he faces Francisco Clavet. Clavet, in shocking fashion, eliminated the "A Train" in two easy sets at last year's Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic.

Last year's champion and finalist also look to repeat their successful runs. Lleyton Hewitt is the fourth seed and should have a fairly easy time defending his title early in the week. The fiery Aussie is scheduled to meet #7 Marcelo Rios in the quarterfinals if the seeds hold. Tim Henman's trip back to the final may be a tougher task as he is in Sampras's section of the draw and drew veteran Spaniard, Albert Costa, in the first round.

Other seeds include #3 Magnus Norman and #5 Thomas Enqvist, in his first tournament appearance of the year following shoulder and knee surgery. The two Swedes are seeded to meet each other in the quarterfinals with Norman opening against Gianluca Pozzi and the Enqvist having a trickier match against Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui. Norman and Enqvist have also entered the doubles competition with a wildcard. Sjeng Schalken rounds out the seeds at #8.

As of this writing, Alex O'Brien, Andrea Gaudenzi, and Adrian Voinea have earned spots into the main draw as qualifiers. The remaining spot will be filled by the winner of Dusan Vemic vs. Lars Burgsmuller. Vemic, a wildcard into the qualifying draw, eliminated South African Marcos Ondruska (who took out the top seeded qualifier Hicham Arazi) in the second round. Other interesting names in the qualifying draw were the apparently still active American, David Wheaton, and Giovanni Lapentti, the younger brother of Nicolas. Both players were knocked out in their first round matches (Wheaton to Vemic and Lapentti to O'Brien).