College football: Minnesota fires Claeys after 1 season.
Minnesota announced Tuesday night that it has fired football coach Tracy Claeys.
The move comes two weeks after the program became embroiled in a standoff with the administration over the suspension of 10 players in connection with allegations of sexual assault.
The Golden Gophers went 9-4 this season and beat Washington State, 17-12, in the Holiday Bowl. But that was overshadowed by a threatened boycott of the bowl by the team.
Claeys publicly supported his players in lobbying for fairness in the sexual assault investigation.
TENNIS
Serena Williams ended four months on the sideline with flashes of form and occasional bouts of frustration in a 6-3, 6-4 win over Pauline Parmentier on Tuesday in the first round of the ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand.
Williams, who rested various injuries after her semifinal exit at the U.S. Open, waited an extra day to make her first appearance of 2017 because rain Monday forced the postponement of her match.
She needed only 74 minutes to beat the No. 69-ranked Parmentier, serving eight aces — including one on match point — but also prolonged the match with a series of unforced errors, including four double-faults.
Destanee Aiava, a 16-year-old Australian, became the first player born in the 2000s to win a main draw match at an elite WTA event by beating veteran American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
“Struggled a bit at the end, but I got through it,” Aiava said.
Hopman Cup: American teammates CoCo Vandeweghe and Jack Sock combined for a 3-0 win over Spain and secured a spot in the final in Perth, Australia. Vandeweghe beat Lara Arruabarrena, 6-2, 6-4, and Sock had a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 win over Feliciano Lopez in the singles matches before teaming up to win the mixed doubles, 4-3 (3), 3-4 (2), 4-3 (2).
Brisbane International: Rafael Nadal was in need of some sleep, so he didn’t waste much time against Alexandr Dolgopolov.
The 14-time major champion, playing his opening match at the Brisbane International a day after arriving in Australia following a win in an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi, beat the Ukrainian, 6-3, 6-3, after getting on court at almost 10:30 p.m. local time.
Returning from a wrist injury that curtailed the end of his 2016 season, Nadal said he’s determined to use every match as preparation for a shot at the title in the season-opening Grand Slam event in Melbourne.
SKIING
Mikaela Shiffrin’s seven-race winning streak in women’s World Cup slaloms ended Tuesday in Zagreb, Croatia, leaving the American one short of the record for most consecutive victories in the discipline. Shiffrin’s rare early exit in the first run allowed Veronika Velez Zuzulova to claim her fifth career win. The Slovak had ended runner-up to Shiffrin in the previous three slaloms. With a win Tuesday, Shiffrin would have matched the best mark of eight straight victories set by Swiss great Vreni Schneider in 1988-’89 and Croatian skier Janica Kostelic in 2000-’01.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
South Florida fired coach Orlando Antigua 13 games into his third season at the American Athletic Conference school.
Athletic director Mark Harlan announced the move, saying assistant coach Murry Bartow will lead the Bulls (6-7, 0-2) for the remainder of the season.
Antigua leaves with a 17-48 record at USF, which hired the former Kentucky and Memphis State assistant under John Calipari in March 2014.