It’s Not an Ace, but Dent Wins Hall of Fame Title

Taylor Dent defeated James Blake, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, Sunday to win the first all-American final in five years at the $400,000 Hall of Fame Championships in Newport, R.I.

“I was just ecstatic,” Dent, 21, said. “I was happier than I thought I’d have been. It’s just a great feeling that I can’t describe in words.”

Dent broke Blake in the second and sixth games, winning the first set in only 19 minutes.

He thought he served a match-clinching ace at 40-30, but his celebration was premature as the serve was ruled wide. Dent did close it out on the next ball in play, making a lunging backhand return for a winner.

“I don’t think it’s ever fun to do that,” he said. “I thought it was in, and I really got lucky with the half-volley flick.”

Blake, 22, said he was just as surprised by Dent’s winning shot.

“He made a great volley. I thought I was at least in control of the point, but there’s nothing you can do about it. He made a great return. When I saw it go over, it hurt a little.”

Bob and Mike Bryan won the doubles title, defeating Jurgen Melzer of Austria and Alexander Popp of Germany, 7-5, 6-3.

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Carlos Moya of Spain broke serve in the next to last game and defeated Younes El Anyaoui of Morocco, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, in the final of the Swedish Open at Bastad.

The third-seeded Moya won his second title of the year and the eighth ATP tournament of his career. The 26-year-old Spaniard also won on clay at Acapulco earlier this year.

Moya broke El Anyaoui’s serve in the 11th game of the third set on his second break point with a crosscourt forehand down the line.

Moya hit nearly 75% of his first serves and closed out the match in 2 hours 7 minutes with a love game.

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Alex Corretja of Spain beat Argentina’s Gaston Gaudio, 6-3, 7-6 (3), in the final of the Swiss Open at Gstaad for his first title of the season. Corretja, playing in his first tournament since being eliminated in the semifinal of the French Open, won the Gstaad title for the third time. He also won in 1998 and 2000....Mariana Diaz-Oliva of Argentina beat Russian teenager Vera Zvonareva, 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-3, in the final of the Palermo Invitational in Sicily, for her first WTA title. The 17-year-old Zvonareva, seeded fifth, defeated top-seeded Paola Suarez to reach the final....Austria’s Patricia Wartusch overcame a loss in the first set to beat the Czech Republic’s Klara Koukalova, 5-7, 6-3, 6-3, to win the Casablanca Open in Morocco. The sixth-seeded Wartusch, playing in only her third final, won her second career title.

Pro Soccer

Zhao Lihong’s free kick with five minutes left gave the Philadelphia Charge (9-1-4) a 1-1 tie against the Washington Freedom (6-5-4) in a Women’s United Soccer Assn. game before 5,968 at Washington. Mia Hamm, starting her first game of the season for the Freedom, missed a penalty kick, sending her shot wide in the 10th minute.... Katia scored on a penalty kick in the 69th minute to help the San Jose CyberRays (6-5-4) tie the San Diego Spirit (3-8-4), 2-2, before 6,102 at San Diego.

Pro Football

San Diego is failing to deliver on a number of promises it made to the NFL for next year’s Super Bowl.

The league will not get the number of usable seats it wanted, renovations to the visiting locker room or upgrades to the press box and audio/visual control room in time for the game on Jan. 26.

Jim Steeg, an NFL vice president, acknowledged in a San Diego Union-Tribune report that it is not uncommon for host cities to fail to live up to all of their commitments. But he said the difference between what San Diego promised and what it’s delivering is larger than most.

The NFL has been pressing San Diego to fulfill its promises, saying they are “critical to the NFL’s commitment to have the Super Bowl in San Diego.” Most important to league officials was the guarantee that there would be 70,000 acceptable seats.

Qualcomm Stadium has slightly more than 70,500 seats, but the NFL discounts the bottom seven rows because of obstructed views, eliminating more than 2,000 from the total.

Delays in construction of the San Diego Padres’ downtown ballpark kept the baseball team playing in Qualcomm longer than expected, and workers could not get access to the stadium to add more seats, city officials said.

The bid specifies that the host committee will spend as much as $1.6 million to get to 70,000 acceptable seats. With that goal unattainable, the parties have agreed that the committee will pay the NFL the $1.6 million to offset lost ticket revenue.

In addition, the San Diego Super Bowl XXXVII Host Committee still has not signed a contract binding them to the promises made when the city was bidding for the game.

Officials with the NFL, the host committee and the city say former San Diego Mayor Susan Golding promised too much when the city bid for the game.

Miscellany

Eric Uptagrafft shot two perfect series to finish with 398 points in the prone position and place second behind Slovenia’s Raymond Debevec in the 300-meter rifle three positions at the world shooting championships in Lahti, Finland.

Uptagrafft beat Debevec by six points in the prone position and by one point in the finishing knee position. Debevec’s 387 in the standing position was the difference.

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Calvin Harrison pulled away from Jerome Young to win the 400 meters at the MAL Cup international track and field meet at Szombathely, Hungary. Harrison won in 45.32 seconds. Young finished in 45.73.

Robert Fazekas of Hungary set a national record in the discus with a throw of 235-3, the fourth-best throw ever in the event. He beat his own record by more than six feet.