Davenport Defeats Venus; Serena Hurt

Venus Williams couldn’t end her losing streak against Lindsay Davenport, and Serena Williams was forced to retire because of a sprained left ankle in the quarterfinals Friday at the Bausch & Lomb Championships at Amelia Island, Fla.

Top-ranked Davenport beat Venus Williams for the fourth consecutive time, rallying for a 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 win. She advances to today’s semifinals against seventh-seeded Nadia Petrova, who beat 15th-seeded Shinobu Asagoe 6-0, 0-6, 6-2.

Hours later, Serena Williams won the first set, 7-5, and was leading the second set, 5-4, over Silvia Farina Elia when she tumbled backward while sliding for a ball. She was treated by trainers and was able to continue.

The set eventually went to a tiebreaker, and Williams had triple match point at 6-3, but couldn’t convert. Farina Elia battled back and eventually won the tiebreaker, 9-7. Serena Williams then informed tournament officials she wasn’t able to continue.

The win sends the 12th-seeded Farina Elia into today’s semifinal against unseeded Virginie Razzano, a 6-4, 6-4 winner over sixth-seeded Vera Zvonareva.

Motor Racing

Scott Riggs won the first pole of his career in NASCAR’s premier series. He had a fast lap of 96.671 mph at Martinsville, Va., Speedway, the shortest, slowest track in Nextel Cup racing, relegating Ryan Newman to the outside of the front row for Sunday’s Advance Auto Parts 500. Newman, the track record holder, qualified at 96.657.

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Defending series champion Bobby Hamilton won the pole for today’s Kroger 250 Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway, turning a lap at 95.098 mph in his Dodge.

Pro Football

The NFL met Friday’s deadline for turning over documents about its drug-testing results and policy to the congressional panel that held last month’s hearing on steroids in baseball.

“They were just delivered. We’ll start going through them,” said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Government Reform Committee’s ranking Democrat, Henry Waxman of California.

Waxman and committee chairman Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue on March 31 asking for information about the league’s drug program.

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Tennessee Titan quarterback Steve McNair said he would return for his 11th season after an injured sternum plagued him for most of 2004. McNair underwent surgery in December to graft a sliver of bone from his right hip onto his sternum to strengthen it.

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Former Oakland Raider center Barret Robbins, still recovering from gunshot wounds after a struggle with police in January, was transferred to a Texas hospital to continue physical rehabilitation and treatment for bipolar disorder.

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In Arena Football League games: Matt Nagy completed 24 of 28 passes for 245 yards and six touchdowns to lead the Georgia Force to a 56-53 victory over the Austin Wranglers at Atlanta.... The Nashville Kats and Dallas Desperados failed to score in overtime at Dallas and wound up in a 41-41 tie, the first in the league since 1988.... Clint Dolezel’s five touchdown passes helped the Gladiators defeat the Grand Rapids Rampage, 56-28, at Las Vegas.... At Phoenix, the Arizona Rattlers easily held off the Columbus Destroyers, 70-53.

College Basketball

Francisco Garcia will forgo his senior season at Louisville and make himself available for the NBA draft. The 6-foot-7 forward said he will participate in several training camps to prepare for the June 28 draft.

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Savannah State, coming off an 0-28 season that made it the second winless NCAA Division I team in the last half-century, hired Horace Broadnax as its new coach. Broadnax, the point guard on Georgetown’s 1984 NCAA championship team, coached at Bethune-Cookman from 1997 to 2002.

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Beth Burns was rehired as women’s coach at San Diego State, which she led to the NCAA tournament four times from 1989-97.

Miscellany

The U.S. defeated Sweden, 4-1, at Linkoping, Sweden, to advance to today’s final of the women’s world hockey championship against Canada, which beat Finland, 3-0.