Venus Williams Wins First Clay-Court Championship

Venus Williams won her first clay-court tennis title Sunday, routing Mary Pierce, 6-0, 6-3, in the final of the Betty Barclay Cup at Hamburg, Germany.

Williams won her third title of the year and moved up two places to No. 5 in the WTA rankings. “It’s been a great week,” she said. “I always play well in Germany.”

Williams, 18, won the final in 61 minutes and did not drop a set in four matches during the week. She won the Grand Slam Cup in Germany last year and was in the final of this year’s indoor tournament in Hanover.

Williams won $80,000 for her fifth title. Pierce earned $40,000.

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Stefan Koubek, a qualifier from Austria, beat fifth-seeded Sebastien Grosjean of France, 6-1, 6-2, to win the $325,000 AT&T; Challenge at Duluth, Ga. Koubek earned $46,000 for his first ATP Tour title . . . . Franco Squillari of Argentina won his first ATP Tour title, beating Andrei Pavel of Romania, 6-4, 6-3, in the final of the BMW Open at Munich, Germany.

Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia won his second ATP tour title, defeating Slava Dosedel of the Czech Republic, 6-2, 6-2, in the finals of the $475,000 Czech Open clay court tournament at Prague . . . . Two-time defending champion Jimmy Connors defeated longtime rival John McEnroe, 6-1, 6-2, to win the Trigon Champions senior tennis tournament at Richmond, Va. The victory was Connors’ sixth in nine meetings with McEnroe on the Worldwide Senior Tennis Circuit.

American Corina Morariu routed top-seeded Julie Halard-Decugis of France, 6-2, 6-0, to win the $142,500 Bol Ladies Open at Bol, Croatia. One-third of the competitors who originally planned to play withdrew from the tournament fearing its proximity to the NATO military campaign in Yugoslavia.

Volleyball

Long Beach State received the at-large berth for the NCAA men’s volleyball championship at Pauley Pavilion. The 49ers (21-3) are the No. 2-seeded team and will open the tournament Thursday against third-seeded Indiana-Purdue of Ft. Wayne (23-3). Top-seeded Brigham Young (28-1) will face No. 4 seed Penn State (22-12) in the other semifinal.

Football

Wide receiver David Boston, the Arizona Cardinals’ top draft pick last month, fractured his left shoulder blade during a mini-camp passing drill in Tempe, Ariz.

Boston, the eighth pick overall from Ohio State, will need as many as six weeks to heal but should be ready for the start of training camp July 30 in Flagstaff.

Ed Manning, an Arena Football League official for 13 years, was in critical condition after being hit by a player during a game on Saturday night at Des Moines, Iowa. Manning was injured when Iowa’s Mike Horacek apparently ran into him.

College Basketball

A booster group that paid for a golf outing for University of Minnesota men’s basketball coaches and their spouses might have violated federal law. The Golden Dunkers could be in violation of the law for calling itself a charity and telling members they could take income tax deductions for contributions, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

Internal Revenue Service officials said the nonprofit group is not a charity and that contributions to it are not deductible as charitable gifts.

Money raised by the Golden Dunkers was used to send Coach Clem Haskins, three assistant coaches and a trainer, along with their spouses, to Las Vegas for an annual “coaches seminar.” A university auditor last week said the 1997 trip, which cost $9,100, appeared to be a golf outing with no apparent business purpose. The Golden Dunkers also purchased a $31,000 truck for Haskins after the Gophers made it to the NCAA Final Four in 1997.

Miscellany

Alfredo Vigueras of Woodland, Calif., won the U.S. men’s marathon championship in 2 hours 14 minutes 19 seconds at Pittsburgh, securing a spot on the team that will compete in the world championships in Seville, Spain, in August. Vigueras, 35, joins second-place finisher Eddy Hellebuyck, 38, of Albuquerque, N.M., and third-place Stephen Swift, 28, of Middletown, Conn., on the U.S. men’s team.

An eight-member ethics panel, including former Senate Majority leader Howard Baker and former U.N. chief Javier Perez de Cuellar, will meet in Lausanne, Switzerland today in the first of series of meetings intended to clean up the Olympics.

Russia struggled to a 2-2 tie against Belarus and Switzerland beat Latvia, 5-3, in the world hockey championships at Hamar, Norway.