Noah Pushes French Team to Fed Cup Title

Sandrine Testud weathered a first-set shutout to beat Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3, Sunday in Den Bosch, Netherlands, clinching France’s first Fed Cup title.

The 4-1 winning margin gave non-playing captain Yannick Noah the title in his first year as Fed Cup coach after guiding two French men’s teams to Davis Cup triumphs.

Noah bounced up and down in celebration at courtside as Testud took advantage of her third match point to win the match.

“This is a great moment,” Noah said. “It was difficult with such a fast court. I was a little scared. . . .”

Testud was full of praise for Noah.

“He pushed me to give my best,” she said.

“He always believed in me and that is what I needed.”

In the first match, Brenda Schultz-McCarthy beat world No. 8 Mary Pierce, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, keeping the Netherlands alive after having lost both of Saturday’s singles matches.

With victory already assured, Nathalie Tauziat and Alexandra Fusai beat the Dutch pair of Manon Bollegraf and Caroline Vis, 6-3, 6-4 in the final doubles match.

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Top-seeded Jim Courier won the China Open, beating fifth-seeded Magnus Gustaffson of Sweden, 7-6 (12-10), 3-6, 6-3, in Beijing.

Courier and fellow American Alex O’Brien lost the doubles final, 7-5, 7-6 (9-7), to the top-seeded Indian team of Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes.

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Britain’s Greg Rusedski won the battle of big servers, defeating Mark Philippoussis of Australia, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-3), in the final of the $975,000 Swiss Indoors in Basel.

“It’s a satisfying title to win because there’s been some great champs who have won here, from [Stefan] Edberg to [Pete] Sampras to [Bjorn] Borg,” said Rusedski, who had a record 143-mph serve at the U.S. Open, where he was a finalist.

The slugfest between tennis’ two heaviest hitters ended with Rusedski serving 22 aces to the Australian’s nine.

Motor Racing

NASCAR, one of the fastest growing spectator sports in the country, remains one of the least diverse. From the Saturday night tracks in small towns to the superspeedways of Winston Cup, in nearly every case the drivers are white, the pit crews are white, the officials are white and the overwhelming majority of fans are white.

“Here we are, moving into a new millennium, and auto racing still looks like 1939 baseball,” said Willy T. Ribbs, a black driver from California who raced in the big time once, and is trying to get there again.

“We don’t view that as an issue,” said Bill France Jr., the longtime president of NASCAR.

“America is what America is today. Anybody can be anything regardless of your race or your national origin . . . You can’t cast a wand and make everything happen that somebody wants to happen.”

In the 50 years of NASCAR history, six black drivers made it to Winston Cup, stock car racing’s top category. Only one, Wendell Scott, ever won a race.

Miscellany

In their final tuneup before opening the ABL season Oct. 17 at the Pyramid, the Long Beach StingRays lost to the Atlanta Glory, 87-85, in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The StingRays led by as many as 11 points in the first half, only to be outscored, 23-11, in the third quarter. Stacey Lovelace of the Glory led all players with 24 points. Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil was high for Long Beach with 20.

The game was a homecoming for the StingRays’ Venus Lacy, a gold medalist in the 1996 Olympics who has nine siblings and 23 nieces and nephews living in Chattanooga. This was her first game at home since graduating from Chattanooga’s Brainerd High in 1985, and she responded with 16 points and a team-high eight rebounds.

Led by four-time U.S. champion Todd Eldredge, the combined men’s-dance team beat the women’s-pairs squad at the Nice ‘n Easy Figure Skating Classic at Daytona Beach, Fla.

The winners had a total of 530.90 points from seven judges, to 526.10 for the second-place team, which was led by the almost total perfection of Michelle Kwan.

Kwan, who got 14 perfect 6.0s in Saturday’s short program, nearly duplicated those marks with 13 in the free skate. The 1996 world and American champion had the best total marks of the competition.

Eldredge paced his team, getting 11 6.0s. He was helped by Rudy Galindo, Dan Hollander, Michael Weiss, Paul Wylie and the dance team of U.S. champions Elizabeth Punsalan & Jerod Swallow.

Winds thwarted the battle over the land speed record between Britain’s Andy Green and American Craig Breedlove for a third consecutive day at Gerlach, Nev.

Neither team made a run Sunday because of tricky crosswinds on the Black Rock Desert, 125 miles north of Reno. Plans call for the teams to make runs today if the weather cooperates.

Overcoming temperatures 15-20 degrees above normal, Andrew Musuva of Kenya and Lyubov Morgunova of Russia won their respective divisions of the Twin Cities Marathon in St. Paul, Minn. It was the first career marathon victory for both and each earned $20,000.

The 70-degree temperature at mid-race meant problems for most of the record field of 7,100.

Shu Kamo was fired as coach of Japan’s soccer team after a 1-1 tie at Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier. Kamo already was under severe criticism after his team’s previous qualifier, in which Japan gave up two goals in the final five minutes and lost to South Korea 2-1.

Assistant coach Takeshi Okada will replace Kamo.