Hingis Falls in Homeland to Raymond
American Lisa Raymond upset Martina Hingis in the quarterfinals of the $926,000 European Indoor Championships on Friday at Zurich, Switzerland, handing the world’s top-ranked woman tennis player only her fourth defeat of the year.
The Swiss teenager struggled against the hard-hitting right-hander from Wayne, Pa., who won, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.
On Sunday, Hingis defeated Raymond, 6-2, 6-2, in the title match at Filderstadt, Germany. The loss marked Hingis’ earliest departure from a tournament this year.
In earlier action, Lindsay Davenport defeated Venus Williams to advance to the semifinals. The all-American match was over quickly as Davenport needed only 55 minutes to beat her 17-year-old opponent, 6-0, 6-4.
“Lindsay was serious about winning the match and apparently I was not,” Williams said. “I was choking. I made a lot of unforced errors for no reason at all.”
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Boris Becker of Germany defeated American Jonathan Stark, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals of the $725,000 Marlboro tournament at Hong Kong, recording his second win in group play.
After his three-set victory over Italian Renzo Furlan on Wednesday, Becker emerged at the top of the Gold Group and will meet Zimbabwe’s Byron Black in the semifinals.
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Fabrice Santoro won 11 consecutive games in defeating fourth-seeded Felix Mantilla, 6-1, 6-1, in the quarterfinals at the Lyon Grand Prix tournament in France.
In another quarterfinal, Tommy Haas of Germany upset fifth-seeded Thomas Enqvist of Sweden, 6-3, 6-3.
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Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic beat Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic in straight sets to advance to the semifinals of the $975,000 ATP Czech Indoor tournament at Ostrava.
The third-seeded Croatian won, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, in 57 minutes. He next will play Slovakia’s Karol Kucera.
International
Swimmer Wu Yanyan won the women’s 200-meter individual medley in world-record time at China’s eighth National Games at Shanghai.
Wu finished in 2 minutes 9.72 seconds, breaking the previous record of 2:11.65 set by compatriot Lin Li at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Chen Yan, who set the world record in the 400 individual medley Monday, was second in 2:11.27, also surpassing the old world mark.
The two main drug labs in American sports face shutdown next year because of stiff new rules set by International Olympic Committee officials, who have discredited the machine the labs say is needed to meet the stricter standards.
The licenses of the labs, in Indianapolis and at UCLA, will be suspended March 1 unless they meet tighter IOC limits for detecting steroids. The only way to do that, the leaders of both labs say, is with an expensive machine that neither can afford--and that the IOC has indicated it doesn’t trust.
American Dan Hollander, skating to the movie soundtrack of “Legends of the Fall,” put on a lively program and won the men’s figure skating title at the Schafer Memorial competition at Vienna. Hollander’s cohesive performance overcame a series of strong triple jumps by Anthony Lui of Australia.
Tatjana Navka and Nikolai Morozov of Belarus won the ice dancing title. They were 14th at the World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, earlier in the year.
With the Cuban contingent at full strength, Olympic, world and continental champions are converging at the weeklong World Amateur Boxing championships in Budapest, Hungary, starting Sunday.
The Cubans won four gold medals at the previous world championships in Berlin two years ago. The biggest star of the Cuban team is heavyweight Felix Savon, who already has two Olympic and five world titles.
Miscellany
Campbell Field, son of America’s Challenge skipper Ross Field, lost part of a finger after it became caught in the main sheet block during the Whitbread Round the World sailing race.
Race organizers said that Campbell Field, the 27-year-old medic on the yacht, suffered the injury while pushing the boom across the boat at night during the first leg of the race, from Southampton, England, to Cape Town, South Africa.
With defending champion Luc Van Lierde not competing because of a foot injury, Thomas Hellriegel of Germany is the favorite for today’s Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawaii. Paula Newby-Fraser of Encinitas goes after her eighth women’s title.
Frankfurt will stage the 1998 championship game of the World League of American Football on June 14, the winner to play the Canadian Football League’s champion a week later.
Fresno State’s Athletic Advisory Council unanimously has approved a temporary code of conduct for student-athletes.
The code includes guidelines for athletes’ responsibilities in academics, sportsmanship and citizenship. Violation of the code could result in disciplinary action ranging from counseling to removal from the team or to loss of a scholarship.
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