Johnson holds off teammate Gordon

Once the prodigy brought into the Hendrick Motorsports fold by Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson gave his mentor no quarter with victory at stake.

Johnson withstood his teammate’s 53-lap challenge that included plenty of banging Sunday in Martinsville, Va., and held him off by a bumper and 0.065 of a second for his third NASCAR Nextel Cup win in six races at the Goody’s Cool Orange 500.

“I’m speechless. I’ve looked up to him my whole career, before I even was back here racing. I’ve looked up to him and knew how good he was at Martinsville,” Johnson said of Gordon, whose seven wins at the track lead active racers.

“That was probably the hardest driving I’ve ever done.”

Gordon tried everything short of wrecking his teammate.

“I’m happy for Jimmie, I am happy for Hendrick to win the race, but I am really disappointed that we didn’t win because I thought we should have,” Gordon said.

Johnson won for the 26th time in his career and extended Gordon’s winless streak to 24.

Denny Hamlin finished third. The race was slowed for 93 laps by 13 cautions.

Helio Castroneves led for all but five of the 100 laps in winning the Honda St. Peterburg Grand Prix for the second straight year in Florida. He beat Scott Dixon by 0.6007 of a second. Tony Kanaan finished third for the same 1-2-3 finish as last year.

J.R. Todd and Ron Capps dedicated their victories in the O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals in Baytown, Texas, to friend Eric Medlen, the funny-car driver killed March 23 after a testing accident.

Todd won the top-fuel division with a quarter-mile run at 4.603 seconds and 313.80 mph. Capps won his second consecutive funny-car race with a 4.86 seconds run at 307.93 mph.

TENNIS

Djokovic, 19, becomes

youngest winner

Novak Djokovic, a 19-year-old Serb, beat qualifier Guillermo Canas, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, to win the Sony Ericsson Open title at Key Biscayne, Fla.

With his first ATP Masters Series title, the 10th-seeded Djokovic became the youngest men’s champion in tournament history. He won every set he played -- the first time the Key Biscayne men’s champion has done that since Ivan Lendl in 1989.

Top-ranked Justine Henin withdrew from the tournament in Charleston, S.C., beginning April 9, saying she wants to return home to Belgium and rest before the European clay-court season.

MISCELLANY

UCLA gymnasts

earn 13th Pac-10 title

With junior Tasha Schwikert reclaiming the all-around title she shared as a freshman, eighth-ranked UCLA won its 13th Pacific 10 Conference gymnastics title at the Wells Fargo Center in Tempe, Ariz.

The Bruins scored a season-best 197.2. Schwikert won her title with a season-high 39.75.

Jimmy Cochran edged Ted Ligety in the second run of the slalom in Girdwood, Alaska, winning in a combined 1 minute 45.72 seconds for the national title on the same mountain where he won twice in 2004 at the U.S. Alpine Championships. Ligety was 0.32 of a second back. Bode Miller finished third in 1:47.15.

Resi Stiegler (1:35.81) won the women’s slalom, beating Sterling Grant (1:35.96) and Hailey Duke (1:36.40).

Sri Lanka beat West Indies by 113 runs in Guyana, all but mathematically ending West Indies’ chances of winning the cricket World Cup on home turf.