BASKETBALL
Smart gets raise
Texas is giving men’s basketball Coach Shaka Smart a contract extension and pay raise. Smart’s first team finished 23-10 and the Longhorns lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season. The school considered that good enough to give him an extra year on his original contract with an additional $100,000 per season. With the changes, Smart will earn $3 million next season and his contract now runs until 2023. The changes were approved Thursday by university regents, which discussed the contract behind closed doors.
TENNIS
Agut moves up
Roberto Bautista Agut advanced to the Winston-Salem Open final, beating Viktor Troicki 7-5, 6-7 (2), 6-2 on Friday. The second-seeded Agut, a 28-year-old from Spain, reached the quarterfinals at the Rio Olympics and joined the field in Winston-Salem as a late wild-card entry after he lost in the first round last week in Cincinnati. He moved one victory from his fifth career title and his third this year. Agut is ranked 17th and seeded 15th in the U.S. Open, which begins Monday in New York. The ninth-seeded Troicki, a 30-year-old from Serbia, is 35th in the ATP rankings. In the other semifinal, 16th-seeded Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain faced Australia’s John Millman.
Radwanska advances
Top-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska breezed through her Connecticut Open semifinal Friday, routing two-time defending champion Petra Kvitova 6-1, 6-1. Radwanska, who will be seeded fourth next week in the U.S. Open, was never challenged. The Polish star won the first five games of the first set and the first four in the second against her Czech opponent. The 27-year-old will be looking for her second title of the year after winning the Shenzhen Open in China in January. She will face the Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina in the final. Svitolina beat Sweden’s Johanna Larsson 6-4, 6-2. That match began with three consecutive service breaks before the 21-yearold Svitolina found her touch and took control. Svitolina, who beat Serena Williams in the Olympics, is 4-0 in WTA finals, but this will be her first in a Premier event.
Stephens withdraws
American Sloane Stephens has withdrawn from the U.S. Open because of a right foot injury. The announcement Friday means that Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig becomes the 32nd and final seed, as Stephens had been seeded 24th. Had Puig remained unseeded, she could have met one of the top players in the first or second round. Stephens, 23, was a 2013 quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows and reached the semifinals at the Australian Open that year. While she had more success earlier in her career in the Grand Slams than in other tour events, that pattern had reversed in the past couple of years. Stephens hadn’t played since losing in the first round at the Olympics. The U.S. Open, the year’s final major, begins Monday.
HORSE RACING
Travers draws 14
Fourteen horses, a field that includes just about all the top 3-yearold males in training, except Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist, are entered in today’s $1.25 million Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Preakness Stakes and Haskell Invitational winner Exaggerator is the 3-1 morning-line favorite for the race. His challengers include a colt he beat in the July 31 Haskell Stakes, American Freedom, along with two entrants from the barn of Steve Asmussen — Belmont Stakes winner Creator and third-place Kentucky Derby finisher Gun Runner. Connect, a colt that did not participate in the Triple Crown races, is 4-1 on the morning line. American Freedom is 6-1. Gun Runner, Destin and Arrogate are 10-1. Creator is 15-1. Creator beat Destin by a head in the Belmont. Laoban, winner of the Grade II Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga in wire-to-wire fashion, is 15-1 on the morning line and will break from post 13. Creator finished last in the Jim Dandy, his return to the races after winning the Belmont. Post time for the race is 4:44 p.m. and will be televised on NBC.
Borel returns today
Hall of Fame jockey Calvin Borel will return to racing aboard Kiss My Note for today’s sixth race at Ellis Park. The three-time Kentucky Derby winner recently announced he would end his retirement after less than five months with mounts at Ellis Park in preparation for September meets at Kentucky Downs and Churchill Downs in Louisville. Borel’s first mount will be the 9-2 third betting choice owned and trained by Buff Bradley in a 5 ½-furlong maiden race on grass. Borel, 49, will also sign autographs for fans between the second and fourth races at Ellis Park, where he won riding titles in 1995 and 2011.
SOCCER
Dempsey out
Seattle Sounders and U.S. national team forward Clint Dempsey will miss Sunday’s MLS match against Portland as he undergoes evaluations for an irregular heartbeat. The Sounders announced Dempsey’s status Friday, two days before their Cascadia showdown against the Timbers. He will miss at least Sunday’s game but his status beyond that is still to be determined. Dempsey played 90 minutes and scored two goals in Seattle’s 3-1 victory over Portland on Sunday. He did not make the trip to Houston for the Sounders’ midweek game, remaining in Seattle, although the team said that decision was made separately from the irregular heartbeat issue. The team said: “As the medical process unfolds and information is gathered internally, no other details are being made publicly available at this time.”
Sinclair honored
Canada’s Christine Sinclair, who plays for the Portland Thorns, has been named the National Women’s Soccer League Player of the Olympics. Sinclair scored the game-winning goal in a 2-1 victory over host Brazil to earn Canada its second consecutive Olympic bronze medal. The finish helped propel Canada from No. 10 in the FIFA world rankings to No. 4. It was her 165th career goal in her 250th appearance for the national team. She is second only to retired U.S. forward Abby Wambach (184) for international goals. Sinclair revealed after the medal match that she had lost her father just two months before the Olympics. Canada’s captain scored three overall goals at the Rio Games. The league’s Player of the Olympics was determined by a vote by media members who cover the league.