National sports briefs
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Associated Press
KAUNAS, Lithuania ó Spain won its second straight European basketball title Sunday, beating France 98-85 behind Juan Carlos Navarroís 27 points.
Pau Gasol added 17 points and 10 rebounds for Spain, which became the first repeat champion since Yugoslavia in 1997. Serge Ibaka had five blocks in the second quarter as Spain built a 10-point lead to pull away.
Tony Parker scored 26 points for France but got little help and could not bring his team its first continental title. France came within six points in the third period but a 7-0 run keyed by a 3-pointer from Navarro restored Spainís double-digit lead.
Navarroís performance followed a 35-point game in the semifinal win over Macedonia and earned him the Most Valuable Player honors for the tournament.
GOLF
PRATTVILLE, Ala. ó At 16, Lexi Thompson has become the youngest player to win an LPGA Tour event.
The Floridian closed with a 2-under 70 on Sunday to win by five strokes at the Navistar LPGA Classic over Tiffany Joh.
Thompson shattered the age record for winning a multiple-round tournament held by Paula Creamer, who won in 2005 at 18. Marlene Hagge was 18 years and 14 days old when she won the single-round Sarasota Open in 1952.
Thompson, who turned 16 in February, led by five strokes entering the final round and built that to seven through 10 holes at the Robert Trent Jones Trailís Capitol Hill complex. Then came the teenís only big lapse on the pressure-packed day when she bogeyed the next two holes while Joh surged to within three strokes.
Thompson erased any concerns of a collapse with birdies on Nos. 16 and 17.
BMW Championship
LEMONT, Ill. ó Justin Rose chipped in for birdie on the 17th hole and hung on to win the BMW Championship.
Rose closed with an even-par 71 at Cog Hill for a two-shot victory and is headed to the Tour Championship with a shot at the $10 million FedEx Cup prize. But it wasnít that easy. He watched a five-shot lead shrink to one shot over John Senden until the birdie chip gave him a cushion.
Senden closed with a 70 to finish alone in second and go from No. 55 in the FedEx Cup to No. 9, making him among the top 30 who qualify for the Tour Championship.
Geoff Ogilvy (69) finished third. That gave him a spot at East Lake and at Royal Melbourne for the Presidents Cup.
TENNIS
BELGRADE, Serbia ó Novak Djokovic withdrew from his match because of back pain, giving Argentina an insurmountable 3-1 lead over Serbia to reach the Davis Cup final.
The top-ranked Serb fell to the floor Sunday with back pain during the third game of the second set after losing the first set to Martin Del Potro 7-6 (5).
Argentina will play Spain in the final.
Rafael Nadal put Spain into the final after routing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-0, 6-2, 6-4 for an insurmountable 3-1 lead against France in the other semifinal.
BOXING
LAS VEGAS ó Floyd Mayweather Jr. won the fight with a questionable ó if legal ó pair of punches that Victor Ortiz never saw coming. He followed it by berating an 80-year-old announcer in the ring and demanding he be fired.
Later on he would insinuate that the only way Manny Pacquiao keeps winning is that heís juiced.
All in a nightís work for boxingís bad boy, and a profitable one at that. Probably not as profitable as Mayweather claims, but a huge payday without doubt.
He sells because people buy pay-per-views to either cheer him on or yell at the big screen in hopes he will lose. On Saturday night he won for the 42nd straight time, and he wasnít about to offer up apologies for how it was done.