Rios, Corretja in Italian Open Final

Get used to these names: Marcelo Rios and Alex Corretja. One of them could be the next champion in a Grand Slam event.

For the second time in three weeks, they have reached a major clay-court final and established themselves as top contenders for the French Open starting May 26.

Spain’s Corretja, who is seeded 10th and has emerged as the most consistent clay-court player of the season, outplayed No. 6 Goran Ivanisevic, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-4), at the Italian Open in Rome on Saturday to reach his fourth final of the year.

Rios, the No. 7 seed from Chile, was a break down in the third set but won six consecutive games to beat Spain’s Alberto Berasategui, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, and confirm his status as one of the sport’s rising stars.

Today’s final will be a rematch of last month’s championship match at the Monte Carlo Open, which Rios won in three sets.

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Mary Pierce, who won the Italian Open last week, beat Amanda Coetzer to advance into today’s final of the $927,000 German Open in Berlin. Pierce will meet Mary Joe Fernandez, who beat second-seeded Jana Novotna.

Motor Racing

Jeff Gordon charged through the field at Charlotte Motor Speedway and won The Winston, the 13th annual all-star event for stock car racing’s top series, at Concord, N.C., taking home $207,500 from the $1.1 million purse. Bobby Labonte was second, 15 car-lengths back, and his older brother Terry Labonte was third. Dale Earnhardt and Jimmy Spencer rounded out the top five.

Elliott Sadler set a track record in taking the pole position for today’s CoreStates Advantage 200 at Nazareth, Pa. . . . Tony Raines used an outside pass with 39 laps remaining to hold off Mike Miller and Harold Fair to win the AC Delco Challenge Series Jennerstown (Pa.) 300.

Pro Football

The Oakland Raiders signed free-agent guard Lester Holmes, who started 14 games for Philadelphia last season.

Brett Favre’s agent says he expects the quarterback to attend Green Bay’s mini-camp next month and training camp in July even if he doesn’t have a new contract, despite two recent news reports that suggested he might sit out in protest.

Boxing

Luisito Espinosa of the Philippines retained his World Boxing Council featherweight title when his fight with Manuel Medina was stopped in the eighth round because the champion was bleeding from a head butt at Manila. Espinosa was ruled the winner because he was ahead on the judges’ cards.

Gina Guidi knocked out Angela Buchanan 46 seconds into the first round of their scheduled eight-round bout as part of an all-female card at Reseda Country Club.

Miscellany

King General Manager Dave Taylor, who was drafted in 1975 by the Kings after an All-American career at Clarkson University, will receive an honorary doctorate degree in science today from his alma mater in Potsdam, N.Y.

Jamie Porter’s two-run double was the deciding hit as Washington came from behind to defeat Stanford, 12-9, and win the Pac-10 baseball championship.

UCLA split two games at the NCAA softball regionals in Lafayette, La., losing, 4-1, to Southwestern Louisiana before rebounding to defeat Northeast Louisiana, 3-0.