Injured Williams Falls to Tauziat

Grimacing and barely able to walk, Serena Williams hobbled through the Paris Open final Sunday before losing, 7-5, 6-2, to Nathalie Tauziat.

Williams, the 18-year-old defending champion, wiped away tears at times. She injured a ligament in her right knee during the sixth game of the first set and was hampered the rest of the match. She felt pain whenever she put weight on her right leg. She had her knee wrapped between sets.

“All of a sudden I felt it go,” said Williams, the top-seeded player in the $537,000 tournament. “The longer things went, the worse it was. I had the same problem last year at this time, like tendinitis, but I haven’t had it since.”

Tauziat, seeded second, earned $87,000. The 32-year-old Frenchwoman is the oldest player on the tour.

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Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf have decided to marry, probably on Graf’s June 14 birthday, the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported. The couple is planning a wedding that would coincide with the one-year anniversary of when the romance began.

The wedding is planned for Agassi’s hometown of Las Vegas between the start of the French Open on May 29 and Wimbledon on June 26, the newspaper said.

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Mark Philippoussis of Australia successfully defended his Sybase Open title, defeating Mikael Tillstrom of Sweden. Philippoussis overpowered Tillstrom with 21 aces during the 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 victory in the $350,000 ATP event at San Jose. . . . Top-seeded Nicolas Kiefer of Germany beat unseeded Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, to win the $1-million Dubai Open. Kiefer, the losing finalist last year to Jerome Golmard of France, got $187,000 and a BMW. . . . Switzerland’s Marc Rosset defeated compatriot Roger Federer, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5), to win the Marseille Open in France. It was the first all-Swiss final in the history of the ATP Tour. It was Rosset’s 14th ATP title.

Pro Football

The Chicago Bears signed former Buffalo Bills cornerback Thomas Smith to a $22.5 million, five-year contract. The deal includes a $6.5-million signing bonus. . . . Two days after signing quarterback Jeff Blake, the New Orleans Saints added speedy receiver Joe Horn, formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs. . . . Tight end Jay Riemersma agreed with the Buffalo Bills on a four-year contract worth about $12 million, CBS Sportsline reported. Bills spokesman Scott Berchtold would not confirm or deny that an agreement had been reached. The contract is worth $12,036,000 and includes a $4-million signing bonus, Riemersma’s agent and an unidentified team source told the sports Web site.

Winter Sports

Fritz Strobl and Werner Franz of Austria had identical times to win an icy and treacherous super-G at St. Anton, Austria, beating World Cup leader Hermann Maier. Strobl and Franz were timed in 1:20.72, .26 seconds faster than their compatriot Maier, who finished third. . . . Andre Lange guided his four-man team to victory at the men’s bobsled world championships at Altenberg, Germany, beating German compatriot and Olympic champion Christoph Langen. . . . Frode Andersen won a men’s 12.5-kilometer biathlon pursuit at Ostersund, Norway, while his Norwegian compatriot and World Cup leader, Ole Einar Bjorndalen, was disqualified for having a bullet left in his rifle. . . . Norway’s Kristian Hammer won the 15-kilometer race in World Cup Nordic Combined at Sapporo, Japan, finishing in 47:18.5. Todd Lodwick of Steamboat Springs, Colo., was second, 1:11.1 seconds behind. . . . Daniel Weinstein of Brookline, Mass., and Amy Peterson of Ballston Spa, N.Y., skated to victory in their respective 1,000-meter races to win the overall titles at the U.S. short-track speedskating championships in Walpole, Mass.

Miscellany

Detroit television station WKBD quoted Tiger General Manager Randy Smith as saying the team has withdrawn an eight-year, $140-million contract offer to outfielder Juan Gonzalez, But Smith, speaking from Florida, later said, “That’s not anything close [to what I said]. I’ve never even said there was a deal out there.”

Smith said Detroit is still interested in signing Gonzalez to a long-term deal. The $140-million offer would be the richest total package in baseball history, topping Ken Griffey Jr.’s $116.5 million, nine-year contract with the Cincinnati Reds.

Goalkeeper Kasey Keller was honored as the 1999 Honda player of the year, presented annually to the top performer on the U.S. men’s soccer team. Keller, a four-time finalist for the award, received 329 votes from a panel of more than 200 print and broadcast soccer journalists. Midfielder Claudio Reyna was second with 221 votes and midfielder Cobi Jones, the 1998 winner, was third with 109. . . . Cameroon won the African Nations Cup for the first time since 1988, beating Nigeria, 4-3, on penalty kicks at Lagos, Nigeria, after the Super Eagles rallied for a 2-2 tie in regulation.

One day after setting a world record, American Jenny Thompson won three more events at the FINA World Cup short-course swimming championships in Paris. Thompson, who set a world record in the 100-meter butterfly Saturday, won the 100-meter freestyle in 54.87 seconds, the 100-meter individual medley in 1:01.22 and the 50-meter butterfly in 26.54. In all, she won five events during the two-day competition.