Briefly

Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport gave the U.S. Fed Cup team a 2-0 lead over Belgium.
Williams defeated Els Callens 6-2, 6-2 Saturday in Delray Beach, Fla., shortly after Davenport needed just 39 minutes to win 6-0, 6-2 over Eveline Vanhyfte.
The Belgians are playing the best-of-5 first-round Fed Cup contest without their top two players, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters.
The 392nd-ranked Vanhyfte, looking nervous throughout the match, was overwhelmed by Davenport, ranked No. 1 in the world and the first top player the 21-year-old Belgian had faced.
In the first set, Davenport won 28 of the 33 points. It wasn’t until Davenport led 6-0, 1-0 that Vanhyfte took a game to deuce, and the Belgian needed until the fifth game of the second set to win a game.
“Obviously, it was a tough position for her to come out in, her first big match,” Davenport said of her opponent. “I was just trying to take advantage of that.”
In the later match, the players traded service breaks in the first two games, with Williams having back-to-back double faults the final two points of the second game. But after settling down, she won five of the next six games.
In the three other quarterfinal series, Elena Dementieva won to give defending champion Russia a split with Italy; France and Austria also were tied 1-1; and host Spain took a 2-0 lead over Argentina.
•Top-seeded Andy Roddick was broken twice in the first six games before charging back to dominate Jurgen Melzer 6-4, 6-2 and reach his fifth straight final at the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships in Houston.
In today’s title match, Roddick will face France’s Sebastien Grosjean, who rallied for a 6-1, 7-6 (5) victory over Ecuador’s Nicolas Lapentti.
•Rafael Nadal will play fellow Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero in the Open Seat Godo final in Barcelona, Spain.
The eighth-seeded Nadal powered past No. 11 Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic, 7-5, 6-2 in the semifinals, while Ferrero beat No. 7 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 7-6 (1), 6-1.
gymnastics
UCLA’s Maloney wins two titles
UCLA’s Kristen Maloney couldn’t secure another team title, but she gave herself a nice send-off nonetheless. The fifth-year senior won the balance beam and the vault titles at the NCAA women’s gymnastics individual event finals in Auburn, Ala., for a triumphant finale to an injury-marred career.
She won the first two events with matching scores of 9.9375. She outdistanced Iowa State’s Janet Ansen (9.90) and LSU’s April Burkholder (9.8875) on the vault, while two-time defending champion Ashley Miles of Alabama was fourth.
Maloney was only the second collegiate gymnast to attempt the Yurchenko laid-out double-twist on the vault, joining Olympian and former UCLA star Mohini Bhardwaj.
In the beam, Maloney beat out Nebraska’s Kristi Esposito and Michigan’s Elise Ray — the 2002 winner — who each scored 9.9125. North Carolina’s Courtney Bumpers, competing as an individual qualifier, scored a 10 to capture her second straight floor exercise title.
Cycling
Danielson holds off Armstrong
Lance Armstrong made a late surge on the steep climbs of snowy Brasstown Bald, but teammate Tom Danielson held on to claim the fifth stage and take the overall lead in the Tour de Georgia in Alpharetta, Ga.
Danielson, who races with Armstrong on the Discovery Channel team, finished less than 15 seconds ahead of Levi Leipheimer, leaving the two Americans in a tight battle for the overall lead.
Armstrong was third, followed by Floyd Landis, another U.S. cyclist who lost the yellow jersey as the overall leader.
The race, which Armstrong is again using as practice for this summer’s Tour de France, ends today in Alpharetta, north of Atlanta.
Miscellany
Arizona State hires Love as A.D.
Lisa Love, a former volleyball coach who climbed through the administrative ranks at Southern California, was named athletic director at Arizona State.
Love, senior associate athletic director at USC, replaces Gene Smith, who resigned to become athletic director at Ohio State. She signed a five-year contract that includes both academic and athletic performance incentives and the second woman athletic director in the Pac-10, joining Anne “Sandy” Barbour at California.
•Coin Silver pulled away in the stretch and won the Lexington (Ky.) Stakes at Keeneland, giving trainer Todd Pletcher a third horse to run in the Kentucky Derby.
Rockport Harbor, trained by John Servis, who won last year’s Derby with Smarty Jones, faded in the stretch and finished sixth as the 3-5 favorite.
The loss will keep the 3-year-old colt out of the Derby in two weeks, Servis said.
Sports people
Klitschko stops Castillo in fourth
Former WBO champion Wladimir Klitschko‘s stopped previously unbeaten Cuban Eliseo Castillo in the fourth round in Dortmund, Germany. Klitschko, the younger brother of WBC champion Vitali Klitschko, knocked down Castillo with a jarring straight right with 9 seconds left in the round. … Missouri sophomore forward Linas Kleiza, the Tigers’ leading scorer and rebounder last season, said he will enter the NBA draft . The 6-foot-8 Lithuanian star averaged 16.1 points and 7.6 rebounds last season. He will not hire an agent, leaving his options open for returning for his junior season. … Ethiopia’s Araya Haregot pulled away in the final mile to win the second annual Salt Lake City Marathon. Haregot finished with a time of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 14 seconds for his first marathon victory. Poland’s Dorota Gruca won the women’s race with a time of 2:30:07. … Derba Bedada Medeksa of Ethiopia won the Belgrade (Serbia-Montenegro) Marathon, ahead of Kenyan runners David Chepkwony and Collins Edep. Medeksa finished in 2:12:10 in his second marathon, beating Chepkwony by 19 seconds and setting a record for the Serbian capital’s race. Russia’s Inga Abitova won the women’s race in 2:38:20.