Injury Sidelines Marlin for Rest of NASCAR Season

Sterling Marlin, who led the Winston Cup standings for 25 weeks, will sit out the rest of the NASCAR season because of a fractured vertebra in his neck.

Marlin was injured in a crash Sunday at Kansas City, Kan., and the break in his vertebra was diagnosed Wednesday at Charlotte, N.C., his Chip Ganassi Racing team said.

“Could be worse, I could be in a wheelchair,” Marlin said. “Ain’t nothing you can do but go after it next year.”

Marlin has two victories this season, 14 top-10 finishes and is fifth in the points standings.

Jamie McMurray, hired to drive a third car for Ganassi next year, will drive Marlin’s car for the rest of the season. But McMurray won’t compete in the Winston Cup race in Martinsville, Va., later this month because the Busch series, where he is committed to finish out the season, will be racing at Memphis, Tenn., that weekend.

Tennis

U.S. Open men’s champion Pete Sampras has withdrawn from all remaining ATP tournaments this season.

Sampras, 31, has not played since winning the U.S. Open, his 14th Grand Slam singles title, last month in New York.

The withdrawal has added to speculation that Sampras is planning to retire.

He said he is taking time to consider his future.

“Since winning the U.S. Open on Sept. 8, I have been taking some time to reevaluate where I want to go from here,” Sampras said in a statement released by the ATP. “I’m therefore not sufficiently prepared to compete in the upcoming tournaments in Madrid, Basel and Paris.”

Sampras will finish out of the ATP’s top 10 for the first time since 1989.

Defending champion Lleyton Hewitt, the world’s top-ranked men’s player, defeated Michael Chang, 6-2, 6-2, in 57 minutes in the second round of the Japan Open at Tokyo.

In women’s play, wild-card Yuka Yoshida, ranked 266th, beat fifth-seeded Cara Black, 6-2, 6-1.

Amanda Coetzer defeated defending champion Jelena Dokic, 7-6 (1), 3-6, 6-3, to advance to the women’s quarterfinal round of the Kremlin Cup at Moscow.

In a women’s doubles match, Anna Kournikova, who was teamed with American Megann Shaughannesy, retired in the third set because of an ankle injury. Kournikova and Shaughannesy lost to Dokic and Nadia Petrova.

The extent of Kournikova’s injury was not immediately known, and it was not clear if she would play Petrova today in a singles match.

In a first-round men’s match, Bohdan Ulihrach defeated Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2). Top-seeded Marat Safin beat Fernando Meligeni, 6-4, 7-6 (4).

Basketball

Point guard Mark Jackson, 37, signed with the Utah Jazz after passing a team physical. Terms were not announced.

Jackson averaged 8.4 points and 7.4 assists with the New York Knicks last season. He was traded to Denver on draft night, but after he made it clear he didn’t want to play for a rebuilding team, the Nuggets bought out his contract and he became a free agent.

Cincinnati men’s Coach Bob Huggins, 49, was transferred to a hospital in Cincinnati from a hospital in Beaver, Pa., as he recovers from a heart attack.

Miscellany

Alvaro Gonzalez scored two early goals to lead Mexico City’s UNAM Pumas to a 4-3 victory over Toluca in the first game of a Copa Libertadores playoff doubleheader at the Coliseum.

Gonzalez gave Pumas a 1-0 lead in the sixth minute. Joaquin Beltran’s long pass found Gonzalez, who beat defender Maximiliano Cuberas on a breakaway and scored from 13 yards inside the left post.

Cindy Parlow scored two goals, leading the U.S. women’s national team to a 4-0 victory over Australia in the Nike U.S. Cup at Cary, N.C.

Russia defeated Italy, 2-1, in the first game at SAS Soccer Stadium before 2,661.

China’s Le Maosheng lifted 401 1/2 pounds to set a weightlifting world record for clean and jerk in the men’s 136-pound division in the Asian Games at Busan, South Korea.

Japan’s Kosuke Kitajima broke the oldest world record in men’s swimming, winning the 200-meter breaststroke in 2 minutes 9.97 seconds in the Asian Games and beating the mark of 2:10.16, set by Mike Barrowman of the United States in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

America’s Cup challenger racing was postponed today for the second consecutive day because of strong winds in the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, New Zealand.

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T.J. Simers has the day off.