Agassi: Games Bigger Than the Davis Cup

Andre Agassi said Friday he is prepared to sacrifice playing in the Davis Cup to pursue an Olympic gold medal in Atlanta.

Agassi said he believed the annual Davis Cup should be scrapped in Olympic years.

“The Olympics are bigger than the Davis Cup, in my mind,” Agassi said as he prepared to defend his Australian Open title in Melbourne. The tournament starts Monday.

“In an Olympic year, I don’t think it [Davis Cup] should be played. The Olympics are just the Olympics--it’s a chance to represent your country in the purest form.”

Agassi and three-time women’s champion Monica Seles will face qualifiers in opening-round matches in the Australian Open. Seles is returning to the tournament for the first time since winning her third consecutive women’s singles title in 1993.

Top-seeded Pete Sampras drew hard-serving Australian Richard Fromberg for his opening match. Fromberg is ranked 90th.

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Todd Martin rallied to defeat top-seeded Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, to win the Peters International at Sydney, Australia. In the women’s semifinals, Seles defeated Brenda Schultz-McCarthy, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4, and will face Lindsay Davenport, a 6-2, 4-6. 7-5 winner over second-seeded Kimiko Date of Japan.

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Michael Chang won the Colonial Classic in Melbourne for the second consecutive year, beating Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia, 7-5, 6-1.

Football

Seventy-five seniors will finish their college careers in the East-West Shrine game today before an expected crowd of more than 75,000 at Stanford Stadium. So will former UCLA Coach Terry Donahue, who will direct the West team. Among the players are Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George and Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier.

Skip Peete, older brother of Philadelphia Eagle and former USC quarterback Rodney Peete, was named to the UCLA staff by new Coach Bob Toledo. He will be in charge of running backs. A wide receiver in 1984-85 at Kansas, Peete comes to UCLA from Rutgers, where he coached receivers.

Winter Sports

Former Olympian John Bauer of Champlin, Minn., competing on borrowed skis for the second race in a row, won his second title of the 1996 national cross-country championships at Lake Placid, N.Y., taking the 10-kilometer classical race by more than half a minute.

Baseball

The Angels have agreed to terms of a minor league contract with left-handed pitcher Juan Agosto and have invited him to spring training as a non-roster player.

Agosto, 37, last pitched in the major leagues with Houston in 1993. He is 40-33 with 29 saves and a 4.01 earned-run average in 13 major league seasons.

The team also invited outfielder Jovino Carvajal to spring training. Carvajal, 27, split time between double-A Midland and triple-A Vancouver last season, hitting .317 with three home runs, 33 runs batted in and 49 stolen bases in 120 games.

The Colorado Rockies signed pitcher John Habyan to a minor league contract. Habyan, 31, was 4-4 with a 3.44 earned-run average in 59 games with the Angels and St. Louis Cardinals. . . . The Cincinnati Reds signed pitchers Trevor Wilson and Gene Harris to minor league contracts.

Prep Sports

Lamont Frazier, a standout basketball player at Dorsey High, is being withheld from competition until school administrators can determine whether City Section rules were violated by two last-minute grade changes in November.

Last week The Times reported that the school was investigating why Frazier’s grades in geometry and physical science were changed after the grading deadline.

Miscellany

L.A. County auditors are examining whether the owner of a West Covina group home spent state funds to lease a 1995 Mustang convertible for Nebraska football star Lawrence Phillips, who lived in one of the facilities as a teenager, officials said.

Scrutiny of the lease, signed last January, is part of a wider audit by the County Department of Children and Family Services of the Tina Mac Inc. group homes ordered by the Board of Supervisors last week, said Kathryn Barger, deputy to Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

Phillips, an NFL prospect who pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault of his ex-girlfriend last month, lived at Tina Mac’s home in West Covina from the age of 12 until he went to Nebraska.

In October, the NCAA ruled Phillips had not violated regulations by accepting the car, which was leased in the the name of group-home owner Tina MacElhannon, who is considered his guardian.

U.S. Swimming granted Jessica Foschi of Long Island a continuance in a hearing to consider stiffer penalties for testing positive for anabolic steroids. Foschi, 14, was given a two-year probation by a swimming panel, which embarrassed U.S. leaders who are outspoken critics of Chinese drug use.

The Massachusetts swimmer who died after a meet at Dartmouth had a congenital heart defect, according to James Kaplan, the state medical examiner. Greg Menton, 20, collapsed Wednesday after swimming in two events. He died about an hour later.

Louisiana State University was found in negligent violation of federal law for not accommodating its female athletes. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Doherty in Lafayette ordered the university to come up with a plan for compliance with Title IX within 20 days.