Henman Gives Home Crowd a Thrill

Tim Henman won an Assn. of Tennis Professionals title for the first time in his home country, defeating Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia, 6-2, 6-2, Sunday in the final of the Samsung Open at Brighton, England.

It was Henman’s sixth career title and second this year after his victory in Austria last month.

“Tim was playing unbelievably well,” Hrbaty said. “I think he was pumped to win his first tournament in England. I was fighting but Tim didn’t give me a chance.”

Henman was in command all the way against Hrbaty. The second-seeded Hrbaty needed treatment for a back injury while down 3-1 in the second set.

Henman broke Hrbaty in the opening game of the match. He broke again for a 4-1 lead and served out the set.

“It was a very satisfying way to end the year,” Henman said. “My performance was as good as it has been in a long, long time.”

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Thomas Johansson, playing flawlessly on a court where he is a club member, upset second-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4, to win the Stockholm Open for the first time.

The unseeded Swede completed a great run through the tournament in which he defeated three compatriots--Thomas Enqvist, Jonas Bjorkman and top-seeded Magnus Norman--to reach the final.

“I thought it would be a longer match than that,” Johansson said. “But I felt really good from the start when I stepped out on the court and I knew he had to play real well to beat me.”

Johansson, a finalist in 1998 against Todd Martin, ended his season in the Royal Tennis Hall with his best performance of the year. He often plays as a member of the co-organizing Royal Tennis Club.

Volleyball

USC, the third-ranked team in the nation, earned one of four No. 1 seeds as the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament selections were announced.

The Trojans (25-2), co-champions of the Pacific 10 Conference with Arizona, are the top seed in the Pacific Region and will play Georgia State in the first round Friday night. USC will host the first two rounds at the Lyon Center.

UCLA (22-7) is the No. 3 seed in the Mideast Region and will play host to two rounds at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins open Saturday against Morgan State.

Pepperdine (23-6), the No. 4 seed in the Mideast, hosts Fairfield on Friday in the first round.

Long Beach State (22-7) and Loyola Marymount (20-8) were sent to the West Region and will play on Thursday. The 49ers will face San Jose State in Santa Clara and Loyola will play Stanford in Santa Barbara.

Winter Sports

Austrian Hermann Maier won a World Cup super-giant slalom race, redeeming himself after a 15th-place finish in the downhill at Lake Louise, Canada.

Maier, who last year dominated the men’s downhill and super-G, was timed in 1 minute 29.53 seconds, a considerable improvement over Saturday’s race when he nearly crashed.

Dutch speedskater Gianni Romme smashed his world record at 10,000 meters, winning a World Cup event in 13 minutes 3.40 seconds at Heerenveen, Netherlands.

World champion Armin Zoeggeler of Italy won the men’s singles at the Luge World Cup, defeating Karsten Albert to prevent a German sweep of the top three events at Sigulda, Latvia. . . . Norway, led by Odd-Bjorn Hjelmeseth, won the opening men’s World Cup cross-country ski relay of the season by finishing 51.4 seconds ahead of Finland at Beitostolen, Norway. . . . Lindsey C. Kildow held off a challenge by Anna Prchal of Canada to win the first Chevy Truck Super Series super-G at Aspen, Colo., by four-hundredths of a second.

Miscellany

Season-ticket holders for the Sparks received some long-awaited good news recently: The team is moving to Staples Center.

In announcing the WNBA club would play in Staples next summer, the Sparks told season-ticket holders in a recent letter they could select their seats at an open house “during the relocation process.”

The Sparks played their first four seasons at the Forum. The switch to Staples Center couldn’t be made last summer because of the Democratic National Convention.

A bloodied David Reid faded badly once again in the later rounds but had enough of an early lead to take a unanimous 10-round decision over Kirino Garcia at Las Vegas in his first fight since losing to Felix Trinidad.

Reid, who improved to 15-1 with seven knockouts, was knocked down in the final round and appeared ready to go down again as the bell sounded to end the fight. Reid’s left eye was a bloody mess from taking right hands from the journeyman Garcia.

Monmouth County authorities said they expect to question a woman this week in connection with a barn fire that killed 20 horses in Manalapan, N.J.

Robert Honecker, the county’s first assistant prosecutor, said the woman, thought to be responsible for leaving a heater that sparked the Thursday night fire, had not yet been interviewed. Honecker declined to identify the woman or say how she was employed at Gaitway Farm.

Robert Drummond and Damon Allen scored fourth-quarter touchdowns to power the B.C. Lions to a 28-26 Grey Cup victory over the Montreal Alouettes at Calgary, Canada.

Marcus Gronholm of Finland won his first world drivers’ championship with a second-place finish in the Rally of Britain at Cardiff, Wales. England’s Richard Burns, who finished second behind Gronholm in the points’ standings, won the race for the third straight year.

. . . Kenya’s William Musyoki won the Lisbon Marathon for the third time, while Portugal’s Fatima Silva was the women’s winner.