Becker to Defend in Australia

Boris Becker confirmed Sunday that he will defend his men’s singles title at the Australian Open tennis championships in January.

Becker’s management said Sunday that he has recovered from an ankle injury that forced him to withdraw from a tournament in Doha, Qatar.

Becker also said he will play in the Colonial Classic exhibition event at Kooyong, Australia the week before the first Grand Slam tournament of the year.

The 29-year old German won his first Grand Slam title in five years at the Australian Open last January in Melbourne.

Becker also finished the year impressively, reaching the ATP championship finals, where he lost to Pete Sampras in five sets, then winning the Grand Slam Cup.

The Australian Open will be played from Jan. 13-26 at the National Tennis Center in Melbourne.

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Justin Gimelstob and Chanda Rubin scored an upset mixed doubles victory to lift the United States to a 2-1 victory over fourth-seeded France on the opening day of the Hopman Cup team tennis championship at Perth, Australia.

Rubin downed Mary Pierce, 6-4, 6-1, in the opening women’s singles and then teamed with Gimelstob to beat Guy Forget and Pierce, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, in the decisive doubles.

Forget, who has been troubled by blisters on his left hand, beat Gimelstob, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, earlier in the men’s singles.

Gimelstob, a 19-year-old UCLA student from Livingston, N.J., helped the Americans to victory after flying 12 hours to replace Richey Reneberg, who withdrew to be with his wife, who is awaiting their first child.

Goran Ivanisevic and Iva Majoli earlier teamed for a 2-1 victory over Australia as Croatia made a winning start to its defense of the title.

Ivanisevic and Majoli beat Mark Philippoussis and Nicole Bradtke of Australia, 7-5, 7-5, in the decisive mixed doubles.

Majoli beat Bradtke, 6-4, 6-3, in the opening women’s singles before Philippoussis surprised Ivanisevic, 6-2, 6-3, in the men’s singles to level the match.

“My serve was falling apart,” said Ivanisevic, who played in borrowed tennis shoes after making an 18-hour flight to Australia without his luggage.

Winter Sports

Luc Alphand of France won a grueling World Cup downhill on the icy and treacherous Stelvio course to capture his second victory of the season’s four speed races at Bormio, Italy.

Alphand, 31, the defending World Cup downhill champion, edged William Besse of Switzerland by 0.21 seconds and Italy’s Kristian Ghedina by 0.67 seconds.

Andrej Hutka suffered a season-ending knee injury when he fell during the downhill race.

Hutka, a 21-year-old Czech, tore the cruciate ligament in his right knee and was taken to a hospital in Sondalo.

Deborah Compagnoni of Italy scored her first slalom victory in a women’s World Cup race, in which a number of top skiers missed gates on the icy slope at Semmering, Austria.

With a first-run best time of 52.13 seconds, Compagnoni had a combined time of 1:42.94, 1.05 seconds ahead of Patricia Chauvet of France.

Oksana Gritschuk and Yevgeny Platov, the Olympic and three-time world ice dance champions, will miss the European Figure Skating Championships in January in Paris.

Gritschuk and Platov recently changed coaches, moving from Natalya Linichuk, who led them to the gold medal in the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994, to Tatiana Tarasova, who has coached other world and Olympic champions.

Mario Stecher of Austria won a World Cup Nordic combined one-man sprint relay in Oberwiesenthal, Germany, pulling even with Samppa Lajunen in the overall standings behind Finnish front-runner Jari Mantila.

Stecher, who jumped for 126.5 points, finished the 7.5 kilometer cross-country in 14 minutes, four seconds.

Todd Lodwick of Steamboat Springs, Colo., who was suffering from flu two weeks ago, finished 27.4 seconds behind for third.

Dieter Thoma, the Olympic team champion from Germany, won the World Cup ski jumping event in Obertsdorf, Germany which doubled as the opening of a four-part tournament.

With 253 points, Thoma finished ahead of Norway’s Kristian Brenden, who was second with 252.6 points. Andreas Goldberger of Austria was third with 246.7.

Rebecca Sundstrom, capitalizing on Chris Witty’s absence, won the U.S. Sprint Speedskating Championship in Milwaukee.

Casey FitzRandolph captured three races for his third consecutive men’s U.S. sprint title.

Witty, who last season won both the U.S. and world sprint titles, sat out all but one of four weekend races because of a viral infection. Sundstrom of Glen Ellyn, Ill., won the 500 meters in 41.01 seconds and the 1,000 in 1:21.25.

FitzRandolph of West Allis, Wis. won the 500 in 36.30 and the 1,000 in 1:13.30.