Newport Beach’s Dent Upsets Top-Seeded Norman

Taylor Dent, a 19-year-old wild card from Newport Beach, upset top-seeded Magnus Norman, 6-3, 7-6 (3), on Tuesday in the first round of the Gold Flake Open tennis tournament at Madras, India.

Dent, ranked 144th in the world, broke the Swedish star in the eighth game and held serve to take the first set.

Norman went up, 3-0, in the second set but Dent tied the score, 4-4. The players held serve the rest of the way, with Dent in command in the tiebreaker.

“I did not play my best tennis,” Norman said. “It takes a lot to beat me. This guy is good.”

Dent was thrilled with the victory.

“I think he was not prepared for me,” Dent said. “This is a great start to the new year.”

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Top-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia defeated Francisco Clavet of Spain, 6-2, 6-2, in the first round of the Qatar Open at Doha. Second-seeded Nicolas Kiefer of Germany beat Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5. . . . Defending champion Lleyton Hewitt was a 6-4, 6-3 winner over Australian compatriot Wayne Arthurs in his opening match in the AAPT Championship at Adelaide, Australia. . . . Top-seeded Conchita Martinez of Spain beat Guilia Casoni of Italy, 6-4, 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Women’s Hardcourt tournament at Gold Coast. . . . Defending champion South Africa withstood a strong challenge and beat Australia, 2-1, and Slovakia was a 2-1 winner over Belgium in the Hopman Cup at Perth, Australia.

Jurisprudence

Rae Carruth’s murder trial resumed in Charlotte, N.C., after a long holiday break with the former NFL player’s high school football coach telling jurors he admired Carruth and loved him as a son.

Meanwhile, defense attorney David Rudolf would not disclose whether he planned to call Carruth to the witness stand to rebut testimony that he masterminded the 1999 shooting death of his pregnant girlfriend.

Carruth’s former coach, Melvin Fontes, testified that the former Carolina Panther receiver was highly respected by his peers and teachers at his Sacramento high school and was a leader in a student conflict-resolution program.

The father of a 14-year-old hockey player pleaded not guilty in Hingham, Mass., to charges he attacked his son’s coach in a locker room after a high school game. David Sullivan, 45, was arrested Friday. He was arraigned on charges of assault and battery and disorderly conduct.

A Frankfurt court found German soccer player Anthony Yeboah guilty of tax evasion and ordered the forward from Ghana to pay a $175,000 fine.

Baseball

The value of Manny Ramirez’s eight-year contract with the Boston Red Sox was cut $20.5 million to $141,342,731 by the players’ association because of a low interest rate on the deferred payments to the outfielder.

Left-handed reliever Felix Heredia and newly acquired third baseman Bill Mueller agreed to two-year contracts with the Chicago Cubs. Heredia and Mueller had been eligible for salary arbitration.

Soccer

Former U.S. soccer captain John Harkes was among 25 players selected for a two-week training camp before an exhibition game against China on Jan. 27 at Oakland.

Harkes, a 33-year-old midfielder, was the national team’s captain for 27 games before then-coach Steve Sampson dropped him from the roster April 14, 1998, about two months before the World Cup. Sampson said Harkes refused to accept a more defense-oriented role.

Since then, Harkes has played only once for the national team, in the second half of an exhibition game against Chile last Jan. 29.

Three days after the final, the winner of Brazil’s soccer championship was still unclear.

Saturday’s game between Vasco da Gama and Sao Caetano was suspended after a fence collapsed and more than 100 fans were injured.

The rules of the Joao Havelange Cup call for the team causing the suspension to be declared the loser. Some evidence suggested Vasco could be held responsible, which would give Sao Caetano its first national championship.

Diego Maradona, kicked out of the Italian League after failing a 1991 drug test while playing for Naples, has met with Napoli Chairman Corrado Ferlaino twice in the last month. Maradona has said in recent years that he’d like to return to the struggling squad in some capacity, possibly a management role.

Names in the News

Jean Van de Velde avoided a massive collapse in the Match Play Championship at Melbourne, Australia, a tournament missing the top stars but still not lacking in excitement.

Van de Velde was 4-up with six holes to play, but needed to make a 15-foot birdie putt on the 19th hole to beat Duffy Waldorf and advance to the second round.

Waldorf, Stewart Cink, John Huston and 29 others faced a long flight home, the penalty for losing in the first round of match play at a tournament halfway around the world.

Boxer Paul Ingle tried to speak for the first time since a blood clot was removed from his brain after he lost his featherweight title two weeks ago. The Englishman, 28, came out of sedation last week in Sheffield, England. Ingle lost his International Boxing Federation title Dec. 16 when he was knocked out in the last round by South Africa’s Mbulelo Botile.

Jim Gilmore, a Kalamazoo (Mich.) businessman who sponsored race cars for A.J. Foyt and other drivers from 1967 to 1990, was killed in a traffic accident in his hometown Sunday during a snowstorm.

Gilmore, 74, hit a patch of ice and lost control of his pickup. The truck flipped on the driver’s side and Gilmore suffocated when snow filled the cab through an open window.

Dick Button, the only American man to win two Olympic figure skating gold medals, was hospitalized after suffering a head injury in a fall. Button was rehearsing a presentation for the national championships in Boston when he fell to the ice Sunday, hitting his head. He is expected to make a full recovery.

In a finish that bodes well for the U.S., World Cup skiers Erik Schlopy and Bode Miller were first and second in an annual invitational slalom race at Sestriere, Italy.

The United States lost to Canada, 2-1, in the quarterfinals of the World Junior Hockey Championships at Moscow.