Martinez Continues Italian Open Mastery

Conchita Martinez established herself as the favorite for the French Open when she won her fourth consecutive clay court tournament, defeating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario on Sunday in the Italian Open at Rome.

Martinez overwhelmed her Spanish rival, 6-3, 6-1 to win her third consecutive Italian Open. The victory came at the expense of the player who will regain the No. 1 ranking in the world from Steffi Graf when the new WTA rankings come out today.

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Andrei Medvedev defended his German Open title, easily defeating Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, at Hamburg, Germany.

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Julie Halard of France won the Prague Open, defeating Ludmila Richterova of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-4, at Prague, Czech Republic.

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Thomas Enqvist took advantage of a short lapse in concentration by Javier Frana early in the third set and held on to win the U.S. Clay Court Championships, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, at Pinehurst, N.C.

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UCLA defeated South Alabama, 4-1, to advance to the semifinals of the NCAA men’s tournament at Athens, Ga. Stanford also advanced, defeating Mississippi State, 4-0.

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It took Stanford 6 1/2 hours to defeat UCLA, 5-4, in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I women’s championships at Pepperdine. Top-ranked Florida beat No. 5 California, 5-0, to extend its winning streak to 19 matches and advanced to the semifinals. The Gators play Georgia in one semifinal, and the other features Texas against the Cardinal.

Auto Racing

Michael Schumacher defeated Benetton-Renault teammate Johnny Herbert by 51.9 seconds to win the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona.

Schumacher’s 12th career victory was relatively easy. He had no problems, a stark contrast to the other contenders.

Jean Alesi challenged Schumacher early, but went out when his Ferrari blew an engine after 25 laps.

Damon Hill stayed close for a while, but his Williams-Renault and three pit stops were no match for the two-stop strategy of Schumacher’s team.

Boxing

Antonio Tarver banged his way to a gold medal and helped the United States regain some respect at the World Amateur Boxing Championships at Berlin.

Tarver outpointed Cuba’s Diosvani Vega, 7-3, for the light heavyweight title.

It was only the second medal for the U.S. team, whose only worse showing was in 1978. Lawrence Clay-Bey won a bronze in super heavyweight.

Australian cruiserweight Tosca Petridis scored an upset, unanimous 10-round victory over former three-time world champion Iran Barkley of the United States at Melbourne, Australia.

College Football

Big 12 football coaches voted 12-0 against a conference football playoff, putting themselves at odds with most of their bosses.

Big 12 officials were mostly lukewarm to the idea of a divisional championship game until recent projects indicated each school could net more than $500,000 from the game.

The Big 12--the current Big Eight plus Texas A&M;, Texas Tech, Baylor and Texas--begins competition in August 1996.

Miscellany

The U.S. women’s soccer team, preparing to defend its world title next month, used two first-half goals from Michelle Akers to defeat Brazil, 4-1, at Portland, Ore. . . . Blackburn won its first English league title in 81 years when second-place Manchester United drew, 1-1, at West Ham on the last day of the season.

Jan Hempel of Germany won his second platform title in two weeks at the Alamo Grand Prix diving meet at Keystone, Colo.

American David Pichler, 26, was second with 625.92 and Russia’s Dmitry Sautin, 21, the 1984 platform world champion, was third with 621.12.

In the women’s 3-meter springboard final, China’s Tan Shuping, the defending and world champion won on her final dive with 522.03. Russia’s Irina Lashko was second and China’s Fu Mingxia was third.

Karch Kiraly and Scott Ayakatubby defeated Mike Dodd and Mike Whitmarsh, 15-6, 7-3, to win the AVP beach volleyball tournament in San Diego. . . . Holly McPeak and Nancy Reno won the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. tournament in New Orleans, defeating Linda Hanley and Angela Rock, 15-3.

Americans Michael Johnson and Gwen Torrence won their 200-meter races at a track meet in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Johnson was timed in 20.22 seconds, edging Brazil’s Robson da Silva. Torrence broke her meet record in the 200 with a time of 22.43 seconds.