set rowcount using subquerys

I have a subquery under sybase included into a select statement, an example..

select name from (select * from table1, table2, where...)

I know that using "set rowcount" I can limit rows from the main select statement, but I want to restrict rows in the inner select statement,

This is a result of migrating from sql server 2000 to sybase, please help me before I get completely crazy.