Top-seeded Pam Shriver overcame a groin injury and advanced to the semifinals of the New South Wales Open tennis championships at Sydney. Shriver defeated No. 5 seed Catarina Lindqvist of Sweden 6-4, 6-1, but with the match only three games old, Shriver left the court for treatment. ”Once I hurt it, I realized my strategy had to change; I just had to start blasting,” Shriver said. In the semifinals, Shriver will meet West German Claudia Kohde-Kilsch, who beat Japan`s Etsuko Inoue 6-2, 6-3. Helena Sukova of Czechoslovakia eliminated unseeded Hesther Witvoet of The Netherlands 6-2, 6-2. Patty Fendick of the U.S. defeated Brenda Schultz of The Netherlands 6-3, 7-5. In the men`s event, John Fitzgerald of Australia beat South African Barry Moir 6-0, 6-1, and Joey Rive of the U.S. defeated Australian Brad Drewett 6-4, 6-2.
Pat Cash of Australia scored a 7-6, 6-4 victory over Sweden`s Mats Wilander in the Rio International, a round-robin tournament at Adelaide, Australia. Henri Leconte of France defeated Stefan Edberg of Sweden 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.
Unseeded Ramesh Krishnan advanced to the semifinals at Auckland, New Zealand, with a 6-3, 6-1 upset of top-seeded Peter Lundgren of Sweden. Krishnan will meet Jim Pugh of the U.S. in the semifinals. Pugh beat countryman Jim Grabb 6-3, 2-6, 8-6. Australian Brod Dyke provided the second upset of the day, 7-6, 6-2 over compatriot John Frawley. Amos Mansdorf of Israeli defeated Dan Goldie of the U.S. 6-1, 6-4.
Martina Navratilova defeated Chris Evert 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) in their last warmup for next week`s Australian Open tennis championships. Both players will be fined $20,000 by the Women`s International Tennis Association for playing the exhibition at Gold Coast, Australia, because a WITA rule forbids members from playing exhibitions on the same continent while a WITA-endorsed event is going on.
British Open champion Nick Faldo overcame a wet course to shoot 6-under-par 66 and lead after one round of the $360,000 Sanctuary Cove Classic golf tournament at Gold Coast, Australia.
The No. 3 member of the U.S. Olympic biathlon team may miss the Winter Olympics because of a ruptured appendix. Raimond Dombrovskis ruptured his appendix last summer, but the injury was discovered last week in West Germany. U.S. hopes for a top showing in next month`s Olympics suffered their second blow in three days when Doug Lewis broke his left collarbone during a crash on an alpine World Cup course at Val d`Isere, France. Lewis, 23, was inspecting the course when he hit a Soviet making video recordings. Teammate Jeff Olson said: ”You`re not supposed to be flying down the course during inspection. Now we`ve hardly got any veterans left on the team.”
They are celebrating at Taylor High School in North Bend, Ohio, after the girls` basketball team ended its losing streak at 79. ”Our principal told the girls they could cut down the nets,” coach Gary Vaughn said after Taylor defeated Hamilton Badin 37-35 Thursday.
Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog on signing Bob Horner to replace Jack Clark:
”I don`t like Horner. Of his lifetime homers, about 70 percent were hit in Atlanta. He never could hit in St. Louis. He can`t hit and he can`t field.
Two days after the Yankees signed Clark, they lost pitcher Bill Gullickson. He said no to their final offer and headed for Japan, where he is expected to sign a two-year contract for $3.3 million with the Tokyo Giants.
The Astros have agreed to contract terms with free-agent pitchers Larry Andersen, Danny Darwin and Dave Smith, and also signed former Astros hurler Joaquin Andujar. Anderson, Darwin and Smith signed hours before the Astros would have lost the right to negotiate with them again until May 1. Andujar pitched last season for the Oakland Athletics.
