Williams Quickly Finds Form

Venus Williams was down, if only for a moment.

The top seed in the Bausch & Lomb Championships stormed back from a 5-3 deficit in the first set to defeat unseeded Anne Kremer, 7-5, 6-0, Saturday and reach the final of the $585,000 clay-court event at Amelia Island, Fla.

Williams, who struggled with her serve before winning the last 10 games, will meet No. 2 Justine Henin for the title today. Henin was leading her semifinal, 6-2, 4-1, when No. 3 Jelena Dokic retired because of a stomach virus.

Like Henin and Dokic, Kremer was playing her second match of the day because rain the last four days threw the tournament schedule out of whack.

Kremer upset fifth-seeded Sandrine Testud, 7-5, 6-1, in the quarterfinals earlier Saturday, but didn’t have enough left to keep pace when Williams corrected the problem with her serve.

Dokic had defeated 10th-seeded Elena Dementieva, 0-6, 7-6, 6-1, in the quarterfinals. Henin advanced with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 6 Silvia Farina Elia.

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Argentina’s David Nalbandian reached his first final on the tour and will play Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen today for the Estoril Open title at Oeiras, Portugal.

Nalbandian scored a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 semifinal victory over third-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain. Nieminen defeated Brazil’s Fernando Meligeni, 7-5, 6-1.

On the women’s side, fourth-seeded Magui Serna of Spain will meet qualifier Anca Barna of Germany. Serna defeated Russia’s Elena Bovina, 6-3, 6-3, and Barna defeated Dinara Safina, 7-6 (6), 6-4.

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Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco advanced to the championship of the Grand Prix Hassan II tournament with a 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny at Casablanca, Morocco.

Aynaoui will face top-seeded Guillermo Canas of Argentina in today’s final. Canas defeated fifth-seeded Julien Boutter of France, 7-5, 6-4.

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Former French Open champion Michael Chang won two matches to advance to the finals of the USTA Challenger of Calabasas tournament.

Chang, ranked 92nd in the world, will face fifth-seeded Cecil Mamiit in the final. Mamiit defeated Germany’s Bjorn Phau, 7-6 (5), 6-2, in an earlier semifinal match.

The top-seeded Chang defeated Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (5), in the quarterfinals, and Justin Gimelstob, 6-7 (4), 6-2, 6-3, in the semifinals.

Pro Football

Free-agent linebacker Kevin Hardy has agreed to terms with the Dallas Cowboys, a team source said.

The Cowboys have scheduled a news conference for today. Eric Metz, one of Hardy’s agents, declined comment.

Hardy, an all-pro linebacker in 1999 with the Jacksonville Jaguars, toured the Cowboys’ facilities last week and met with owner Jerry Jones and the defensive staff.

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Punter Mark Royals agreed to contract terms with the Miami Dolphins, his seventh NFL team.

The 36-year-old Royals punted last season for Tampa Bay and averaged 40.7 yards, 27th in the league.

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Kevin Daft, a former Santa Ana Foothill High standout, threw two touchdown passes to lead Amsterdam past the Rheine Fire, 27-10, in an NFL Europe opener at Amsterdam. One of Daft’s touchdowns was for 25 yards to Joey Getherall, a former La Puente Bishop Amat High and Notre Dame standout.

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Ola Kimrin made a 30-yard field goal with 4:51 left in overtime to give Frankfurt a 27-24 victory over defending champion Berlin in an NFL Europe game at Frankfurt, Germany.

Boxing

David Tua stopped previously undefeated Fres Oquendo in the ninth round to win the North American Boxing Federation heavyweight championship at Chester, W.Va.

Tua (40-3, 35 KOs) is ranked the fifth-best heavyweight by the World Boxing Orgainzation.

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European champion Michele Piccirillo won a unanimous 12-round decision over American champion Cory Spinks to win the vacant International Boxing Federation world welterweight title at Capione D’Italia, Italy.

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Thailand’s Yodsanan Nantachai won the vacant World Boxing Assn. super-featherweight title with a unanimous decision over Mongolia’s Lakva Sim at Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

Miscellany

David Gordon went four for five with four runs batted in to lead the USC baseball team to a 16-11 victory over No. 2 Stanford at Palo Alto. The Trojans, who have split the first two games of the series, jumped out to an 11-0 lead.

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The Jackie Lockhart rink of Scotland, aggressive most of the week, took a conservative approach in defeating Sweden, 6-5, in the final of the women’s World Curling Championships at Bismarck, N.D.

In the men’s semifinal game, Canada came from behind to defeat the United States, 10-6, setting up today’s championship match between Canada’s Randy Ferbey and Norway’s Paal Trulsen, the 2002 Olympic Gold medalist.