TENNIS

Williams leads Americans to Fed Cup win at Ukraine

Serena Williams defeated Lesia Tsurenko 6-3, 6-2 on Sunday to clinch a victory over Ukraine and send the United States back into the Fed Cup World Group.

Williams’ win gave the U.S. an unassailable 3-0 lead at Kharkiv, Ukraine. Christina McHale later won 7-5, 6-3 against 17-year-old Elina Svitolina, and Liezel Huber and Sloane Stephens completed a 5-0 rout with a 6-4, 6-1 win over 19-year-old twins Lyudmyla and Nadiya Kichenok in doubles.

Williams was making her first Fed Cup appearance on foreign soil in more than a decade to become eligible for the U.S. team at the London Olympics.

n Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic won their reverse singles matches to send Serbia to the Fed Cup final for the first time with a 3-2 victory over Russia at Moscow.

Serbia will face defending champion Czech Republic in November.

Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova led the Czechs to a 4-1 win over Italy.

MONTE CARLO MASTERS: Rafael Nadal ended a run of seven straight defeats in tournament finals against Novak Djokovic, thrashing the top-ranked Serb 6-3, 6-1 to win the event for the eighth consecutive year.

SOCCER

PREMIER LEAGUE: The title race took an unexpected twist when Manchester City beat Wolverhampton 2-0 to move within three points of Manchester United, which blew a two-goal lead in a 4-4 tie with Everton.

Manchester City can pull even when the two rivals meet next Monday at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium. Both teams have three matches left, and Manchester City has a better goal differential.

• Arsenal striker Robin van Persie, the Premier League’s leading scorer with 27 goals, was voted player of the season by his peers.

AUTO RACING

FORMULA ONE: Two-time world champion Sebastian Vettel held off Kimi Raikkonen to win an incident-free Bahrain Grand Prix, as the race was held without any disruption by anti-government protests that turned violent in the days before the event at Sakhir, Bahrain.

On a day when Formula One could again focus more on racing than politics, Vettel protected his pole position and led from the start for his first victory of the season. Raikkonen worked his way up from 11th on the grid and finish 3.3 seconds back.

The race, which was canceled last year because of the unrest in the divided Gulf nation, had been overshadowed most of the week by clashes between riot police and anti-government demonstrators. Protesters claim at least one person was killed by riot police this week.

HIGH SCHOOLS

SOFTBALL: Mo Hannan had four hits with a home run and four RBI to help Scarborough (2-0) take a 19-2 win at Portland (0-1) in a five-inning game Saturday.

ROAD RACING

LONDON MARATHON: Kenya’s Wilson Kipsang and Mary Keitany coasted to victory, virtually assuring themselves of selection for the London Olympics.

Kipsang stormed ahead of the pack with about 6 miles to go and won by more than 2 minutes with a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes, 44 seconds.

Keitany defended her title in 2:18:37 for an African record.

— From staff and news services

 

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