Stich, 28, to Retire From Tennis Because of Shoulder Problems

Michael Stich, the 1991 Wimbledon champion and long-time German Davis Cup player, said Friday he will retire at the end of the tennis season because of recurring shoulder problems.

“It all comes down to this: It’s not fun any longer, it doesn’t make sense any longer,” said Stich, 28. “The last four months were frustrating. There were constant ups and downs.”

Stich said he will enter this year’s French Open and Wimbledon before ending his career in Germany’s Davis Cup match against Mexico in September.

Stich reached No. 2 in the world in 1994 but has slipped to No. 26 in the latest rankings. He has 18 singles titles and nine doubles titles, along with the 1992 Olympic championship with Boris Becker.

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Frenchman Fabrice Santoro upset second-seeded Chilean Marcelo Rios, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, to advance to the semifinals of the Czech Open in Prague. He will play local favorite Bohdan Ulihrach, who beat Alberto Portas of Spain, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

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Marc Rosset of Switzerland, weakened by flu, hung on to defeat second-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), and reached the semifinals of the BMW Open at Munich, Germany. Rosset, seeded seventh, was treated twice at court side during the match.

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Maria Sanchez-Lorenzo of Spain, a qualifier, beat her idol, compatriot Conchita Martinez, 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, to reach the semifinals of the Rexona Cup at Hamburg, Germany.

Sanchez-Lorenzo, ranked 121st in the world, fought off four set points while trailing, 1-5, in the first set, before defeating the 1994 Wimbledon champion.

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Fifteen-year-old Mirjana Lucic of Croatia--playing in her first WTA tournament--upset fourth-seeded Katarina Studenikova of Slovak Republic, 7-5, 6-4, in the quarterfinals of the Croatian Open at Bol. American Corina Morariu reached her first WTA semifinals by defeating Joanette Kruger of South Africa, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.

College Basketball

Robert Traylor, caught in a swirl of published reports linking him to an NCAA investigation of Michigan’s basketball program, has decided to stay at the school.

Traylor, 6 feet 8 and 300 pounds, had been expected to declare himself eligible for the NBA draft, giving up his remaining two years of eligibility. But he called off a news conference and said he is staying at Michigan.

Louisville might have violated NCAA regulations when an assistant basketball coach allegedly provided financial help to the father of freshman Nate Johnson, the Courier-Journal reported.

The NCAA said such a case might violate its rules barring special benefits to players or their relatives. The university already is on NCAA probation.

The newspaper said Carlton “Scooter” McCray acknowledged in an interview Tuesday using his personal credit card to help Frederick Johnson avoid being evicted from a Louisville hotel for failing to pay his bill.

A Fresno man was indicted on drug charges after refusing to tell federal authorities about a businessman named in a Fresno State basketball point-shaving investigation. Anthony “Tony” Corral, 52, was arrested in March on methamphetamine charges but was released after agreeing to talk with investigators about Krikor “Kirk” Vartanian. Vartanian has been named in a federal probe in connection with possible point-shaving by Fresno State basketball players.

Mark Adams has been named women’s basketball coach at UC Irvine. Adams, 36, was an assistant the last three seasons to Colleen Matsuhara, whose contract wasn’t renewed. . . . Dave Bollwinkel has been named men’s basketball coach at Saint Mary’s.

Motor Racing

Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace broke the Sears Point Raceway qualifying record and will start at the front in Sunday’s Save Mart Supermarket 300 in Sonoma, Calif. Wallace, the 1996 winner, held the pole for about an hour with a lap of 92.533 mph. Then Martin raced over the 2.52-mile raceway at a record 92.807 mph for his first Winston Cup pole this year. The record was 92.524 mph, set last year by Terry Labonte.

Miscellany

Arturs Irbe made 34 saves, but Jorgen Jonsson beat him with 2:31 remaining, denying Latvia a historic victory and salvaging a 1-1 tie for Sweden at the World Hockey Championships at Turku, Finland. The Dallas Star goalie made his first appearance for Latvia at the 12-nation tournament after arriving Thursday after his team was eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The defending champion United States beat Canada, 12-3, moving a step closer to the finals in the Women’s Lacrosse World Cup at Tokyo. . . . Tickets for next winter’s Nagano Winter Olympics are selling out fast. The hardest tickets to get are for figure skating, with 1.6 million orders--82 times the tickets available, Nagano Olympic organizers said.

Three Spaniards, led by Alberto Puig, finished among the top four in qualifying for the 500cc motorcycle race at the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. Puig won the pole position by beating three-time world champion Michael Doohan of Australia by nearly half a second.

Names in the News

Two-time Olympic champion Sebastian Coe was bounced from Parliament when the Conservative Party was swept from power in Britain’s general election. Coe lost his seat in the south England constituency of Falmouth and Camborne by 2,688 votes to Labor Party candidate Candice Atherton. . . . Cora L. Alcindor, the mother of former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, died at Cedars Sinai Hospital after an extended illness. She was 79. . . . Jerome Holtzman, national baseball correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, has been selected as the 1997 winner of the Red Smith Award for his distinguished service to sports journalism. Holtzman has written about baseball for more than 40 years.