IN BRIEF
Wayman Tisdale, a three-time All-American at Oklahoma who played 12 seasons in the NBA, died after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 44.
Tisdale died Friday morning at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, hospital spokeswoman Joy McGill said.
He learned of a cancerous cyst below his right knee after breaking his leg in a fall at his home in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, 2007. His leg was amputated last August. He made several public appearances since, including April 7 at an Oklahoma City Thunder game.
Tisdale, a 6-foot-9 forward from Tulsa with a soft left-handed touch, played in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns. He averaged 15.3 points for his career. He was on the U.S. team that won the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics.
After his basketball career, he became an award-winning jazz musician.
CLIFTON, N.J. — Brittany Lincicome has not only got her game back on track, she is starting to show the consistency that all good players seem to possess.The 23-year-old Lincicome followed an opening-round 64 with a 3-under 69 on Friday and took a two-shot lead over Suzann Pettersen of Norway and Ji Young Oh of South Korea at the LPGA Sybase Classic.Lincicome's 11-under 133 total on the Upper Montclair Country Club was the lowest 36-hole total on a par-72 course on the LPGA Tour this year.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Phelps has made some dubious decisions on dry land.Get him in a pool, though, and it's a different story.Picking up where he left off in Beijing, Phelps won the first two races of his first meet since last summer's record-breaking Olympics, hardly looking like a swimmer coming back from a nine-month layoff, not to mention a soul-searching suspension handed down after he was photographed using a marijuana pipe.
MADRID — Dinara Safina might just be the most underappreciated No. 1 in women's tennis.Why is that?"I guess they're jealous that I'm so young and No. 1.," Safina said at the Madrid Open on Friday. "I don't know. I really don't know."Only Evonne Goolagong Cawley spent less time atop the rankings than Safina, who will make it five weeks as the best women's player following the tournament in the Spanish capital.But Goolagong Cawley won seven Grand Slam titles with four of those coming before the introduction of the rankings system in 1975.Safina, who will be top seed at this month's French Open, doesn't believe the majors should be the only benchmark."To become No. 1 it's not just winning the Grand Slams, it's how you compete the whole year," the 23-year-old Russian said. "I won last year four tournaments ... I beat almost all the top-10 players so I think I deserve that spot."