Dent Overwhelms Roddick in Final

Taylor Dent overpowered defending champion Andy Roddick with his serve-and-volley game Sunday, defeating him, 6-1, 6-4, in exactly 1 hour to win the Kroger St. Jude championship at Memphis, Tenn.

It was only the second appearance in an ATP final for Dent, 21, the son of former Australian player Phil Dent. He has won two titles in the last eight months.

The match featured the 16th all-American final since 1997 on the ATP Tour and only the fifth not featuring Pete Sampras or Andre Agassi.

The top-seeded Roddick, 20, showed the effects of sitting out four weeks because of a sore right wrist, which he injured during a 4-hour 59-minute victory over Younes El Aynaoui in the Australian Open quarterfinals. Against Dent, Roddick often hit forehands wide and sent backhands into the net.

Dent, who lost his first three matches this year, couldn’t have played much better. He served effectively and often charged the net, repeatedly dropping winning shots over it.

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Max Mirnyi of Belarus defeated Raemon Sluiter of the Netherlands, 7-6 (3), 6-4, in the final of the ABN Amro tournament at Rotterdam, Netherlands, for his first career title.... Top-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain won the Copa AT&T; in Buenos Aires, defeating Guillermo Coria of Argentina, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

Winter Sports

Marco Buechel of Liechtenstein won a super-giant slalom at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, for his first World Cup victory in a Alpine skiing race.

The last skier from Liechtenstein to win had been Achim Vogt in a giant slalom in 1994. Buechel became the fifth skier from Liechtenstein to win on the men’s World Cup circuit.

Buechel finished in 1 minute 16.13 seconds, just ahead of World Cup overall leader Stephan Eberharter of Austria, who was timed in 1:16.26. Tobias Gruenenfelder of Switzerland was third in 1:16.33.

It wasn’t a good day for Bode Miller of Franconia, N.H., who hurt his chances for the overall World Cup title.

Miller, second to Eberharter in the overall standings, veered off the course and did not finish. He ended up in a spray of snow after losing control on the upper section of the course.

Miller finished 28th in Saturday’s downhill and now heads to races in South Korea and Japan this weekend trailing Eberharter by 185 points.

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Two-time defending World Cup champion Per Elofsson of Sweden won the 20-kilometer skiathlon in the Nordic Skiing world championships at Val de Fiemme, Italy.

Finland won the large-hill team ski jumping title, with Japan second and Norway third. Germany, the reigning world and Olympic champion, finished fourth.

Elofsson outsprinted Tore Ruud Hofstad of Norway and Joergen Brink of Sweden in the last few meters of the race -- formerly known as the pursuit. Elofsson finished in 47:42.3, 0.3 ahead of Hofstad and 0.4 in front of Brink.

Miscellany

Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco failed in an attempt to break the indoor two-mile world record in the Lieven Indoor meet at Lieven, France. The three-time 1,500-meter world champion won in 8:06.61, two seconds off Ethiopian Haile Gebreselassie’s record of 8:04.69, set at Birmingham, England, on Friday.

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Erik Morales defeated Eddie Croft to retain the World Boxing Council featherweight title and Jose Antonio Aguirre defeated Juan Antonio Keb to retain the minimum-weight title Saturday night at Mexico City.

Morales (43-1, 32 knockouts) knocked down Croft (23-7-1) three times before the bout was stopped at the 2:20 mark of the third round. In the minimum-weight bout, Aguirre won by technical knockout in the seventh round.

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The Northern League, an independent baseball league of 10 teams, will hold tryouts for players with college or professional experience March 3 and 4 at Chandler, Ariz.

Tryouts start at 8 a.m. at SRC Baseball Field, 4500 South Basha Rd. The camp is free; players should wear athletic attire and bring a glove. Details: (817) 378-9898 or northernleague.com.