Norman Shows His Game Is in Gear at Hamlet Cup

In a rivalry that goes back to their youth in Sweden, Magnus Norman tuned up for the U.S. Open tennis tournament by defeating Thomas Enqvist, 6-3, 5-7, 7-5, Sunday in the final of the Hamlet Cup at Commack, N.Y.

Norman won the last five games for his first victory over Enqvist in their five meetings. Enqvist was bothered by leg cramps in the third set and served 13 double faults, his final one ending the match.

“The double fault was not the way I wanted to beat him,” Norman said of his close friend since their junior days. “The cramps also affected his play, but that’s the way tennis goes.”

Norman won for the fourth time this year, tying him with Lleyton Hewitt, Gustavo Kuerten and Alex Corretja for most titles on the ATP tour this year. Three of the championships were on hard courts, where his record is 25-8.

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Henry “Bunny” Austin, who teamed with Fred Perry to win four Davis Cup finals in a row in a golden era of British tennis, died at 94 in Coulsdon, England.

Olympics

Keith Sieracki was chosen over Matt Lindland for the 167 1/2-pound Greco-Roman slot on the U.S. Olympic wrestling team in the latest move of a long dispute involving arbitration and court rulings.

Lindland called the U.S. Olympic Committee’s decision “absurd” and his attorney said he would ask a court for a reversal.

Lindland, who lost to Sieracki, 2-1, in the Greco-Roman trials in June and in a final arbitrator’s decision last week, also accused USA Wrestling and the USOC of underhanded tactics. He protested the trials match that decided the best-of-three series, saying Sieracki tripped him.

Trips are not allowed in Greco-Roman wrestling.

Less than three weeks before the opening ceremony in Sydney, the IOC executive board will meet to trim a list of 10 cities--Bangkok, Thailand; Beijing; Cairo; Havana; Istanbul, Turkey; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Osaka, Japan; Paris; Seville, Spain; and Toronto--that have bid to play host to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing and Paris look certain to make the list, with Osaka and Toronto considered to have a good chance and Istanbul an outside shot.

The final selection is scheduled for a meeting in Moscow in July 2001.

Track and Field

Cuba’s Ivan Pedroso leaped 27 feet 0 3/4 inches with his lone valid effort to beat countryman Luis Meliz by three inches in the long jump at the City of Padua meet in Italy.

Pole vaulter Sergei Bubka failed to get over the bar at 17-8 1/2, a bad sign before the Ukrainian heads to his final Olympics. Sweden’s Patrik Kristiansson won by clearing 18-0 1/2.

U.S. sprinter Dennis Mitchell won the men’s 100 meters in a wind-aided time of 10.10 seconds. Manuela Levorato set an Italian record of 11.16 in winning the women’s 100.

Miscellany

Lance Armstrong tuned up for the Olympics by working with U.S. Postal teammate Viatsjeslav Ekimov to handily win the Grand Prix Eddy Merckx time trial at Brussels, finishing the 40.4 miles in 1 hour 16 minutes 18 seconds, beating the team of Chris Boardman and Jens Voigt by 2:10. . . . Masamori Tokuyama (22-2-1) won the World Boxing Council super-flyweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision over defending champion Cho In-joo (18-1) at Osaka, Japan. . . . The U.S. water polo team defeated Romania, 7-4, at Newport Beach.

Names in the News

Bill Christine of The Times will be presented with the Walter Haight Award for career excellence in turf writing by the National Turf Writers Assn., in Louisville on Nov. 1.