Agassi drops match in Dubai Open
Eight-time Grand Slam winner Andre Agassi, 35, lost to 80th-ranked Bjorn Phau of Germany 7-5, 7-5 in the second round of the Dubai (United Arab Emirates) Open on Wednesday.
The fourth-seeded Agassi – playing in his third tournament since losing the 2005 U.S. Open final – struggled to keep pace with the 26-year-old Phau.
No. 1 Roger Federer struggled to beat Mohammed Al Ghareeb 7-6 (5), and Marat Safin’s comeback was derailed in a 7-6 (5), 6-4 loss to Olivier Rochus.
“The ball never came in my range today,” Agassi said. “I didn’t play badly, but it certainly wasn’t good enough.”
Football
Claridge’s death will be examined
Las Vegas authorities said that it could take several weeks before a cause of death is known for former Atlanta Falcons offensive lineman Travis Claridge, who played high school ball in Vancouver, Wash.
Claridge, 27, who played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League last year, died Tuesday morning at a hospital in Henderson after he was found unconscious at his home in Las Vegas, according to the Clark County coroner’s office.
A coroner’s spokeswoman said that no cause of death would be determined until blood test results were known in several weeks.
•Jeff Doyal Robertson, convicted of shooting his son’s high school football coach, was sentenced to the maximum 20 years in prison by a Van Zandt County jury in Canton, Texas.
Auto racing
Charlotte may have landed Hall
Atlanta and Daytona Beach (Fla.) still hope to land NASCAR’s Hall of Fame, even though a report from Charlotte (N.C.) said that city has already locked up a deal to build the shrine to stock car racing.
The Charlotte Observer, citing three anonymous sources, reported that Charlotte had won the race for the stock car racing museum and an official announcement was expected Monday. One source told the paper that final logistics still must be worked out but “it’s going to happen.”
Miscellany
Ex-champ Page remains critical
Former WBA heavyweight champion Greg Page is breathing on his own but remained in critical condition at a Louisville (Ky.) hospital with acute respiratory failure.
Page was admitted Friday to the hospital’s intensive care unit with breathing problems, sepsis, hypothermia and seizures.
•Gary Garner is out as Southeast Missouri State’s men’s basketball coach following a 7-20 season, his ninth at the school in Cape Girardeau.
•Rutgers men’s basketball coach Gary Waters resigned, ending a stay of more than four seasons in which the Scarlet Knights failed to land a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
•Peter Osgood, the outstanding Chelsea striker in the 1970s who helped the soccer team win the European Cup Winners’ Cup, died after collapsing at a funeral in Slough, west of London. He was 59.
•The Washington Mystics of the WNBA traded rookie of the year Temeka Johnson and Murriel Page to the Los Angeles Sparks for Nikki Teasley.