Sampras Reaches Semifinals; Hingis Avoids the Upset Trend

Pete Sampras, a three-time champion of the ATP Tour World Championship, joined three rising stars Friday in the semifinals of the season-ending tournament at Hanover, Germany.

In a year that has signaled the changing of the guard in men’s tennis, two newcomers to the $3.3-million tournament advanced to the last four, Spain’s Carlos Moya and Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman.

Russia’s Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the fourth semifinalist, is playing his third consecutive ATP championship but has reached the semifinals for the first time.

Sampras beat Australia’s Patrick Rafter, 6-4, 6-1, to clinch a semifinal berth.

“I put a lot of pressure on his service games with returning well and making him hit a lot of low volleys,” Sampras said.

Rafter, the U.S. Open champion, needed to win a set to advance but was beaten soundly by Sampras, who improved his career record against the Australian to 8-1.

Sampras, Rafter and Moya all finished Red Group play at 2-1, with Moya advancing along with Sampras based on a higher won-lost sets and games average than Rafter in the round-robin portion.

Sampras, the defending champion, won the Red Group and will play Bjorkman, who beat second-ranked Michael Chang, 6-4, 7-5.

Last year, Bjorkman had a 25-25 singles record. This year, he leads the tour with 69 match wins to jump to No. 4 in the world.

“Jonas is a very talented player,” Chang said. “He is one of the few players really who has an all-court game.”

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Top-ranked Martina Hingis of Switzerland barely escaped an upset, beating Germany’s Anke Huber, 7-6 (10-8), 5-7, 6-4, on a day when three of the top four seeded players were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Advanta Championships at Villanova, Pa.

Hingis, 72-4 this year, is 7-1 against Huber but has had to go three sets with her seven times.

Lindsay Davenport defeated defending champion Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic, seeded second, 6-3, 6-2, and replaced Novotna as the second-ranked player in the world. Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, seeded eighth, breezed by third-seeded Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, 6-2, 6-2, and seventh-seeded Irina Spirlea of Romania stopped fourth-seeded Monica Seles, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).

“When Irina’s serving like she is on a fast surface, she’s tough to beat,” said Seles, losing for the first time to Spirlea indoors.

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Fifth-seeded Andre Agassi was fined the maximum $1,000 for swearing at the chair umpire during a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory over unseeded Brian MacPhie of San Jose in the quarterfinals of the Luxor Las Vegas-USTA Men’s Challenger tournament.

Agassi yelled an obscenity at Norm Chryst of Phoenix after the veteran chair umpire overruled a call on the baseline to give MacPhie a game and tie their second set, 3-3.

Boxing

Following the orders of a Philadelphia federal judge, the World Boxing Assn. has scheduled a Dec. 13 fight between Orlin Norris Jr. and Henry Akinwande in Pompano Beach, Fla., to determine the WBA’s No. 1 heavyweight challenger.

Norris filed a federal lawsuit in April, contending that promoter Don King and the WBA colluded to unfairly deny him the top challenger spot, partly because Norris had dropped King as his promoter and hired another.

Roberto Duran will fight David Radford of Britain, trying for his 101st victory, and one major world title will be decided today at Johannesburg in the biggest boxing card in South African history.

At the Carousel entertainment complex north of Pretoria, International Boxing Federation junior-featherweight champion Vuyani Bungu of South Africa will face Arnel Barotillo of Australia. Two other title fights involving minor organizations are on the card.

Miscellany

International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch not only said he found no problem with a plan for Finland and Norway to share the 2006 Winter Games, he suggested that the bid could include Sweden also.

Former world champion Jeff Greenwood of Granby, Conn., won the first men’s giant slalom of the 1998 snowboard season at Tignes, France. Greenwood, second in the first run, posted a two-run time of 2 minutes 6.96 seconds to win by more than 0.8 of a second over Nicholas Conte of France.

World champion Tara Lipinski won the short program at the Lalique Trophy figure skating competition at Paris, a step toward her first victory of the season. Todd Eldredge, with sore ribs, took the lead in the men’s event, holding off a strong challenge from Russia’s Alexei Yagudin.

FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, said it has no plans to impose sanctions against the Ukrainian soccer team after one of its players tested positive for doping. FIFA’s World Cup Organizing Committee said it would not modify the score of the first leg of the key World Cup qualifying playoff against Croatia on Oct. 29. Ukraine lost, 2-0.

The Ukrainian soccer federation moved swiftly to distance itself from the player, Serhiy Nagornyak, suspending him until the year 2000 from all national competition.

Rain delayed the start of practice until midafternoon, which forced NASCAR to postpone qualifying for the season-ending NAPA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway at Hampton, Ga., until today.

A man who was hurled through a plate-glass window at an Orlando, Fla., bar by Charles Barkley was charged with throwing a glass of ice at a woman who was sitting with the NBA star. Jorge Lugo, 20, was charged but not arrested for the misdemeanor battery, said a spokesman for the Orlando Police Department.

Troy Dumais of Ventura won his second gold medal in two days at the FINA World Junior Diving Championships in Penang, Malaysia, capturing the boys’ 16-18 three-meter springboard event with a score of 602.85. Erica Sorgi of Mission Viejo won the bronze medal in the girls’ 14-15 one-meter springboard.