Capriati Has Problems, but Manages to Win

One game from defeat, top-ranked Jennifer Capriati overcame an erratic serve and rallied Sunday to defeat Anastasia Myskina, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, in the third round of the Nasdaq-100 Open at Key Biscayne, Fla.

Capriati lost more than half of the points when she served, double-faulting 10 times and holding serve only six of 14 games.

But Myskina, seeded 32nd, also struggled to hold. She served for the match at 5-4 in the second set but lost the next three games and the set, and after Myskina took a 2-1 lead in the final set, Capriati finally found her form and won the final five games.

Three other seeded women had a much easier time.

No. 2 Venus Williams was leading Mariana Diaz-Oliva, 6-2, 1-0, when the Argentine retired because of a strained lower back. No. 3 Martina Hingis lost only five points in the opening set and routed Tatiana Poutchek, 6-0, 6-1, in 41 minutes. No. 8 Serena Williams needed only 46 minutes to beat Katarina Srebotnik, 6-1, 6-0.

No. 7 Jelena Dokic, who has won only two matches since straining her right thigh in early February, lost to Anne Kremer, 6-3, 6-1.

In men’s play, No. 9 Andre Agassi beat Augustin Calleri, 6-3, 6-2, but there were three upsets. No. 2 Juan Carlos Ferrero lost to Adrian Voinea, 7-6 (6), 1-6, 6-2; No. 3 Yevgeny Kafelnikov lost to 1998 champion Marcelo Rios, 6-4, 7-6 (4) and No. 7 Sebastien Grosjean was beaten by Gaston Gaudio, 7-6 (7), 4-6, 6-1.

Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson, seeded eighth, beat Guillermo Coria, 6-1, 6-4, and will play Agassi on Tuesday.

Agassi, who turns 32 next month, was the oldest player to reach the third round, but as the tournament begins its second week, he may be the man to beat.

Fully healed from a wrist injury that forced him to sit out the Australian Open, the four-time Key Biscayne champion looked sharp in his first two matches.

Winter Sports

Magdalena Forsberg completed biathlon’s World Cup Grand Slam for the second year in a row despite finishing eighth in her farewell race, a 12.5-kilometer mass start at Oslo.

The 34-year-old Swede, who is retiring as the winningest biathlete ever, added the mass-start championship to the overall, sprint and pursuit titles she won after a disappointing Winter Olympics last month.

“You have to stop one day,” Forsberg said. “It was a perfect place to end my career. But I felt sad in the morning and tears came into my eyes when I dressed before the race.”

Raphael Poiree of France won the men’s race and clinched the World Cup overall title.

Poiree, married to Norwegian star Liv Grete Poiree, skied with French and Norwegian flags down the final straightaway and crossed the line 17.9 seconds ahead of Germany’s Sven Fischer.

Frode Andresen of Norway finished third, 26.5 seconds back, after missing five targets.

Poiree, who had two misses, has three consecutive mass-start wins at the world championship level. He was unbeaten in mass-start races on the World Cup circuit.

College Hockey

Jim Abbott scored twice, including the game-winner with 2:39 left, as New Hampshire beat Cornell, 4-3, at Worcester, Mass., to earn a trip to the NCAA Frozen Four.

New Hampshire (30-6-3) will play in the national semifinals at St. Paul, Minn., on April 4 against Maine (25-10-7), which beat Boston University, 4-3. Michigan will play Minnesota in the other semifinal.

Colin Hemingway also had a pair of goals and Matt Carney stopped 15 shots as the Wildcats, the top-ranked team in the nation, won their 10th consecutive game.

New Hampshire has not appeared in the Frozen Four since 1999.

Tricia Guest scored a tiebreaking goal with 4:56 left and Minnesota Duluth beat Brown, 3-2, at Durham, N.H, to win its second consecutive NCAA women’s hockey title.

Guest, a sophomore, skated in alone, shot between the legs of a defender and scored between the pads of Pam Dreyer.

Kristy Zamora of Brown (25-8-2), the tournament most valuable player, scored her second goal with six minutes left in the second period to tie the score, 2-2.

The goal was Zamora’s 35th of the season.

Minnesota Duluth (24-6-4), a third-year program that lost only one senior from last year’s national championship team, reached the final by beating Niagara, 3-2, in a semifinal Friday.

Miscellany

Chris George, Chris Kenady and John Lilley each scored third-period goals to help the Ice Dogs defeat the Colorado Gold Kings, 4-2, at Long Beach Arena.

Montana fired men’s basketball Coach Don Holst, even though he took the Grizzlies to the NCAA tournament.

Neil Dougherty, an assistant coach at Kansas, is expected to be introduced today as Texas Christian’s men’s basketball coach, replacing the retired Billy Tubbs.