Auto Racing
Ives to crew chief Earnhardt in 2015 Sprint Cup year
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Greg Ives will return to Hendrick Motorsports next season as crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Ives was race engineer for Jimmie Johnson’s record five consecutive championships. He moved to JR Motorsports in 2013 for his first crew chief job, with Regan Smith in the Nationwide Series.
Ives was moved to rookie Chase Elliott’s pit stand this season. He has five Nationwide wins, including three with points leader Elliott.
Hendrick has been on a search for a crew chief for NASCAR’s most popular driver all season. Steve Letarte announced in January he was stepping down at the end of the year to take an analyst position with NBC Sports.
Earnhardt and Letarte opened the season with a Daytona 500 victory. Earnhardt is ranked second in the Sprint Cup standings.
College Basketball
A 93-year-old pipe floods House that Wooden Built
LOS ANGELES – The House That Wooden Built is waterlogged.
Pauley Pavilion, UCLA’s storied basketball arena where John Wooden coached teams that won eight of his 10 national championships, was drying Wednesday after its court was deluged by 10 inches of water when a 93-year-old pipe burst near the campus in Westwood.
The 49-year-old building containing precious artifacts from the Wooden era was renovated for $136 million less than two years ago. The 13,800-seat arena named for chief doner and former UCLA regent Edwin Pauley is buckling, UCLA’s top official in charge of campus facilities, Kelly Schmader, said, but the school is working to save it.
Fortune seeks Providence with Colorado basketball
BOULDER – Colorado basketball head coach Tad Boyle signed Providence College transfer Josh Fortune to a financial aid agreement and will add the junior to the 2014-15 roster.
Fortune will have two years of eligibility remaining after sitting out the upcoming season under NCAA rules.
Fortune is a 6-5, 205-pound guard from Hampton, Virginia, who started all 35 games for Providence last season when he averaged 8.4 points and 2.1 assists. He helped lead Providence to the Big East Conference tournament title by averaging 14.3 points in three games over three days.
Tennis
Nadal puts a wrist in a cast, will miss two tournaments
Rafael Nadal withdrew Wednesday from U.S. Open tuneups in Cincinnati and Toronto because of a right wrist injury, putting in doubt his status for a title defense at the year’s final Grand Slam tournament.
The second-ranked Nadal plays left-handed, but he uses a two-handed backhand.
Nadal’s manager, Benito Perez-Barbadillo, wrote in an emailed release that the Spaniard was hurt in practice on his home island of Mallorca while getting ready for the North American hard-court circuit.
Perez-Barbadillo said that doctors determined Wednesday that Nadal will need to wear a cast on his wrist for two to three weeks, and the initial prognosis is for him to be able to return to action at the U.S. Open, which will begin Aug. 25.
Baghdatis will spell Haas at this year’s U.S. Open
Tommy Haas officially withdrew from the U.S. Open because of surgery on his right shoulder, opening up a spot on the main draw for Marcos Baghdatis.
Haas, currently ranked 26th, is out for the season after having a fourth operation on his shoulder.
Baghdatis is ranked 105th.
Lisicki tops Venus’ record for fastest women’s serve
STANFORD, Calif. – The WTA said Sabine Lisicki hit the fastest record serve in the history of the women’s tennis tour, reaching 131 mph.
The previous fastest WTA serve was 129 mph by Venus Williams at the 2007 U.S. Open.
Associated Press
