NBA
Cavaliers fire coach Blatt in second season
CLEVELAND – David Blatt’s second NBA season seemed to be going better than his first. Now, it’s over.
Blatt was fired Friday by the title-chasing Cavaliers. Blatt, who led the team to the NBA Finals last season, will be replaced by top assistant Tyronn Lue.
Blatt’s firing came one day after the coach was defensive before and after the Cavs beat the Los Angeles Clippers. Blatt had been bothered by criticism that his team – led by superstar LeBron James – received after a 34-point loss to the defending champion Golden State Warriors earlier this week.
Blatt was 83-40 with the Cavs.
Skiing
Svindal wins World Cup super-G for 7th win
KITZBUREHEL, Austria – Aksel Lund Svindal won a World Cup super-G on Friday, extending Norway’s winning streak on the men’s circuit to five races.
Svindal won in 1 minute, 11.79 seconds on the Streifalm course for his seventh victory of the season, beating Andrew Weibrecht of the United States by 0.31, and Hannes Reichelt of Austria by 0.42.
Former Olympic downhill champ Johnson dies at 55
KITZBUEHEL, Austria – Bill Johnson, the first American skier to win an Olympic downhill title, died after a long illness, the U.S. ski team said Friday. He was 55.
Johnson’s health had been on the decline for several years after a series of strokes.
Johnson won the downhill at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, the first American skier to capture gold in Alpine skiing’s marquee event.
He tried to make a comeback ahead of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics but was badly injured in a downhill training run in 2001, sustaining a traumatic brain injury.
Aiming for win record, Vonn leads training
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy – Lindsey Vonn led the final training session for a World Cup downhill Friday and can break the career record for wins in skiing’s signature event Saturday.
Vonn clocked 1 minutes, 37.48 seconds down the Olympia delle Tofane course for a 0.38-second lead over Verena Stuffer.
Vonn is tied with Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Proell on 36 downhill wins. Last year in Cortina, Vonn broke Moser-Proell’s record of overall wins with her 63rd victory.
Tennis
Federer earns his 300th Grand Slam match win
MELBOURNE, Australia – Roger Federer was already a long way clear at the top of the list of men with the most wins in Grand Slam singles matches, so becoming the first to 300 wasn’t a major distraction.
He reached the milestone at Rod Laver Arena on Friday, when he moved into the fourth round of the Australian Open with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Grigor Dimitrov.
Defending champions and top-ranked Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic had matches starting at the same time on nearby courts.
Six-time champion Serena Williams raced to a 6-1, 6-1 win in 45 minutes over 18-year-old Russian Daria Kasatkina on Rod Laver Arena. She will next play Margarita Gasparyan, who beat Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 6-4.
Djokovic took 25 minutes to win the first set against No. 28-seeded Andreas Seppi but needed almost an hour in the next two, saving two set points in the tiebreaker before winning 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (6) win on Margaret Court Arena. After making way for Williams on the main court, he noted it was his first match on Melbourne Park’s No. 2 court since it was renovated to include a roof.
Earlier in a rain-interrupted day at Melbourne Park, 2008 Australian Open champion Maria Sharapova collected her 600th win at tour level.
Associated Press
