Calcavecchia Shooting for Presidents Cup

Mark Calcavecchia played Wednesday like a man determined to achieve his season goal--a spot in the Presidents Cup later this year in Australia.

Calcavecchia didn’t come close to a bogey all day, shooting a seven-under-par 65 under nearly flawless conditions to tie Robert Damron for the first-round lead in the 90-hole Las Vegas Invitational.

Paul Azinger topped a group of seven golfers a shot back at 66. U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen and 13 others were at 67.

Calcavecchia is in 10th place on the points list for the Presidents Cup team, and needs to hold that position through the season-ending Tour Championship.

“I figured when the year began that if I made the Presidents Cup team I would have had a good year,” Calcavecchia said. “The Presidents Cup is my goal. If I can hang on and do that, it’s been a good year.”

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Tiger Woods and Mark O’Meara are fighting a flu bug and hoping the rain abates for their opening matches in the 12-man World Match Play Championship at the Wentworth Club in Virginia Water, England.

They’ll get another day to recover before Friday’s quarterfinals. As two of the four seeded players, they drew byes for the start of play today.

The other two byes went to Vijay Singh, the defending champion, and Ernie Els, the three-time champion.

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Chi Chi Rodriguez, one of the most popular players on the Senior PGA Tour, underwent a successful angioplasty procedure in Sacramento after suffering chest pains, his agent said.

Rodriguez, 62, had what he thought was severe indigestion Tuesday while preparing to play in the Raley’s Gold Rush Classic senior tournament, which begins Friday at Serrano Country Club. He went to a doctor, who found a partially blocked artery.

Baseball

Larry Parrish, who guided Detroit to a 13-12 finish after Buddy Bell was fired last month, has accepted the Tigers’ managing job, the Detroit News reported.

Parrish, 44, has been with the Tigers for seven seasons, managing at four minor league stops.

The St. Louis Cardinals thanked their fans for their support during Mark McGwire’s home run chase by raising ticket prices. Average ticket prices overall will go up $1.92, or 11.8%. The Cardinals are increasing the number of their least expensive seats--the upper terrace--by 14%.

Tennis

Lindsay Davenport won her first match as the world’s top-ranked woman, posting a second-round victory over French qualifier Julie Halard-Decugis at the European Championships in Zurich, Switzerland. Davenport, 22, began the defense of her European crown--as well as her reign atop the rankings--with a 6-4, 6-2 win in 58 minutes to advance to the quarterfinals. The victory extended Davenport’s five-year winning streak in Switzerland to 14 matches.

Top-ranked Pete Sampras needed three sets to beat Jeff Tarango, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals the CA Trophy ATP indoor tournament at Vienna. In another match, Patrick Rafter of Australia beat Byron Black of Zimbabwe, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).

For the second consecutive year, Michael Chang was beaten in the first round of the Singapore Open, losing to unseeded Michael Kohlmann of Germany, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Boxing

Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis have agreed verbally to meet in a heavyweight title unification fight. The fight was brokered by rival promoters Don King and Panos Eliades and Lewis’ manager, Frank Maloney, in London earlier this week. Holyfield, the World Boxing Assn. and International Boxing Federation champion, and Lewis, the World Boxing Council champion, are tentatively scheduled to fight in February or March, probably in Las Vegas.

Mike Tyson said he isn’t confident he’ll get back his boxing license but is preparing for a possible fight this year anyway.

For the last two weeks, the former heavyweight champion has been training in a gym near downtown Phoenix awaiting Monday’s decision by the Nevada State Athletic Commission whether to allow him to resume boxing. Other states have been honoring the license revocation.

“I don’t think they are going to give me back my license, to be honest,” Tyson said after a workout. “I’m not sure of anything, especially anything nice happening to me.”

Miscellany

Former Arizona guard Miles Simon, a second-round draft pick of the Orlando Magic, filed a $1-million suit in federal court in Los Angeles against his alma mater and the Kansas City Star for a 1997 article titled “MVP Made Grade Only on the Court.” He claims the article contained extensive information about his academic records and grades that should not have been made public and alleges invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation.

Sports agent Ronald Allen was indicted in Las Vegas on charges he altered endorsement proposals Nike had offered to ABL basketball players Andrea Lloyd, Angela Aycock and Tari Davis.

Three-time Olympic Alpine skier Kyle Rasmussen, 30, the only American man to win two World Cup ski races in the 1990s, retired after 13 years with the U.S. Ski Team.

Vicente Mosqueda, 19, of Watsonville, Calif., suspected of intentionally running down an Olympic bicyclist in Aptos, Calif., last year, will be arraigned Oct. 27, a Santa Cruz Superior Court judge has ruled. Mosqueda is accused of harassing a group of bicyclists and then knocking Maureen Vergara several hundred feet before driving off, laughing. Vergara ended up with a separated collarbone and a badly cut stomach.

Sagorak Matias scored the only goal of the night, in overtime, as Gimnasia y Esgrima of Argentina beat Comunicaciones of Guatemala during the semifinals of the Los Angeles Coliseum Cup. . . . Elber, playing for injured soccer star Ronaldo, scored three times and added an assist as Brazil defeated Ecuador, 5-1, at RFK Stadium in Washington.