Mauer, Twins agree on four-year contract

American League batting champion Joe Mauer and the Minnesota Twins agreed Sunday to a $33 million, four-year contract, avoiding salary arbitration and giving one of the team’s young stars the security of a long-term deal.

The 23-year-old catcher hit .347 with 84 RBIs last year to help the Twins win the A.L. Central on the final day of the regular season. He played in his first All-Star game last summer.

“We’re extremely happy, because there is not a player who belongs with the Twins more than Joe Mauer,” his agent Ron Shapiro said on Sunday.

•Pitcher Oscar Villareal agreed to a $925,000, one-year contract with the Atlanta Braves, who settled with their only player still in arbitration.

Golf

Fujikawa breaks through

A month after becoming the youngest player in 50 years to make a PGA Tour cut, 16-year-old Tadd Fujikawa shot a 4-under 68 to win the Hawaii Pearl Open at Oahu’s Pearl Country Club in Honolulu .

Fujikawa birdied two of the final three holes to finish the 54-hole tournament at 11-under 205. Hawaii professional Greg Meyer (67) was second.

•England’s Mark James won the Allianz Championship in Boca Raton, Fla., in his first tournament of the year, closing with a 4-under 68 for a two-stroke win over Champions Tour player of the year Jay Haas.

James finished at 15-under 201 on The Old Course at Broken Sound.

Winter Sports

Paerson makes history

Anja Paerson of Sweden won a downhill title in Are, Sweden, becoming the first skier to collect gold medals in all five disciplines at the Alpine Skiing World Championships.

Paerson, who also won the super-G and combined titles here this week, charged down the 7,350-foot WM Strecke course in 1 minute, 26.89 seconds.

Paerson had already won gold in the giant slalom at the last two world championships, and one in the slalom in 2001.

American Lindsey Kildow took silver with her time of 1:27.29, while Austria’s Nicole Hosp took the bronze.

•Aksel Lund Svindal became the first Norwegian to win the downhill gold medal at an Alpine Skiing World Championship in Are, Sweden.

Svindal hurtled down the 9,586-foot Olympia course in 1 minute, 44.68 seconds to win his first major championship title.

•Sven Kramer broke his own 10,000-meter world record and made it a Dutch double at the World Allround Speedskating Championships in Heerenveen, Netherlands, winning the men’s overall title.

Ireen Wust won the women’s title.

Kramer won the 10,000 in 12 minutes, 49.88 seconds, cutting 1.72 off the record he set last March.

•Wang Meng of China won the women’s 500-meter race at a short-track speedskating World Cup meet in Budapest, Hungary, for her second gold medal in two days.

South Korea’s Jung Eun-ju won the women’s 1,000, while Lee Ho-suk of South Korea won the men’s 1,000.

•American Steven Holcomb and teammates Pavle Jovanovic, Steve Mesler, Brock Kreitzburg won a four-man bobsled World Cup race in Cesana, Italy.

•Germany’s Michael Greis won the gold medal in the men’s 15-kilometer mass start at the biathlon World Championships in Anterselva, Italy.

Tennis

Petrova victorious

Russia’s Nadia Petrova came back from a set down to beat Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 and win the Gaz de France in Paris.

•Austria’s Sybille Bammer saved three match points to beat Argentine Gisela Dulko 7-5 3-6 7-5 at the Pattaya Women’s Open in Bangkok, Thailand, for her first WTA title.

•The start of the WTA Tour’s Ericsson International in Bangalore, India, was delayed a day because of a planned strike in the area aimed at shutting down public services.