Off the wire

BASEBALL Auburn fires coach

Auburn fired Coach John Pawlowski on Monday just hours after the Tigers missed the NCAA regionals for the third consecutive season. “Coach Pawlowski worked extremely hard throughout his time here, and he has been a great representative for Auburn University,” Athletic Director Jay Jacobs said in a statement. “I have concluded it is time for our baseball program to move in a new direction. We have a rich baseball heritage, and our goal is to compete for championships. I believe a change is necessary to help us achieve that goal.” Auburn is searching its fourth coach since Hal Baird retired after the 2000 season. Baird led the Tigers to the College World Series twice in 16 seasons but they haven’t been able to approach that success since.Pawlowski went 167-126 in five seasons with the Tigers but posted a 71-79 record in SEC games. Auburn went 33-23 this season and lost to Alabama in the first round of the SEC Tournament.

BASKETBALL Bobcats to hire Clifford

Two people familiar with the situation said the Charlotte Bobcats have hired Los Angeles Lakers assistant Steve Clifford to become their new coach. The sources said Clifford has agreed to a three-year contact. They spoke to The Associated Press on Monday on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not been made public. Clifford replaces Mike Dunlap, who was fired after going 21-61 in his one season as coach. Clifford has worked as an assistant in New York, Houston, Orlando and Los Angeles but has never been a head coach at the NBA level. He has worked under both Jeff and Stan Van Gundy. He becomes the sixth coach of the Bobcats since 2007.

Elena Della Donne outplayed Brittney Griner and had the thirdbest rookie debut in WNBA history, scoring 22 points to lead the Chicago Sky to a 102-80 victory over the Phoenix Mercury on Monday in Phoenix. The No. 2 overall pick behind Griner in this year’s draft, Delle Donne had 16 points by halftime as the Sky raced out to a 24-point lead. She added eight rebounds and finished behind only Candace Parker’s 34-point debut for Los Angeles in 2008 and the 25 Cynthia Cooper scored for Houston in 1997. Griner became the third WNBA player to dunk and first to do it twice in one game. She had 17 points and eight rebounds, but was limited to 2 points in 9 minutes because of fouls as Chicago built its big first-half lead.

MOTOR SPORTS

Kanaan earns $2.4 million

Tony Kanaan won nearly $2.4 million for his victory at the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. Kanaan earned $2,353,500, with runner-up Carlos Munoz earning $964,205. Third-place finisher Ryan Hunter-Reay, the defending IndyCar champion, earned $583,005. Marco Andretti, who took over the series points lead with his fourth-place finish, earned $469,755, and Englishman Justin Wilson was fifth with $337,805.

Fox Sports said it still has not determined why an overhead TV camera cable snapped during the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday in Concord, N.C. The network said an investigation is under way and use of the camera is suspended indefinitely. Earlier, NASCAR said it would wait for Fox Sports to concludeits review before deciding if such technology would be used in the future. Charlotte Motor Speedway said 10 people were injured when part of the drive rope landed in the grandstand; three were taken to hospitals. All were checked out and released. The network said the system was provided by Austrian company CAMCAT. The rope that failed was certified for a breaking strength of 9,300 pounds and was bearing less than 900 pounds of force during the race, according to Fox Sports. The network said it’s reviewing with CAMCAT equipment maintenance records, history and installation information and plans to share its findings with NASCAR and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

HORSE RACING

Sahara Sky wins Met Mile

Sahara Sky and jockey Joel Rosario barrelled down the middle of the track and edged Cross Traffic at the wire to win the $750,000 Metropolitan Mile by a nose Monday at Belmont Park. Sahara Sky returned $11.60, $6 and $3.80 as the third betting choice on a warm day. Cross Traffic, trained by Todd Pletcher, paid $5.10 and $3.40. Flat Out, the 5-2 favorite who had won all four of his starts at Belmont, paid $2.80 to show. The winning time was 1:34.17. TENNIS

Gibbs, Rola win NCAA titles

Blaz Rola of Ohio State and Nicole Gibbs of Stanford won NCAA singles titles Monday in Urbana, Ill. Gibbs repeated as women’s champion after routing a hobbled Mary Weatherholt of Nebraska 6-2, 6-4. Rola, who is from Slovenia, became the first men’s tennis champion for the Buckeyes, beating Jarmere Jenkins of Virginia 7-6 (8), 6-4.

LACROSSE Duke beats Syracuse in final

Duke rallied from an early deficit to beat Syracuse 16-10 on Monday and win its second NCAA men’s lacrosse title. The Blue Devils trailed 5-0 in the second quarter. Jordan Wolf had four goals for Duke (16-5). Josh Offit and Josh Dionne each scored three times, but the real star for the Blue Devils was junior faceoff man Brendan Fowler, who won 13 consecutive at one point to give Duke possession for long stretches. Fowler won 20 of 28 faceoffs overall and was the game’s most outstanding player. The Blue Devils failed to score on their first 11 shots but closed out with 10 of the game’s last 13 goals.FRENCH OPEN Nadal shakes off slow start

Rafael Nadal knew the story well.

He saw it up close the previous time he played in a major tournament: Early round, main stadium, unknown opponent taking risky swings and putting everything in.

At Wimbledon nearly a year ago, it was 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol who took it to Nadal and beat him in the second round.

At the French Open on Monday, in Nadal’s return to Grand Slam action after missing seven months with knee trouble, it was 59th-ranked Daniel Brands in the guest-star role. Brands employed a similar go-for-broke style and was hitting big, just like Rosol did at Wimbledon, and it worked for one whole set and most of the second before Nadal regrouped to defeat Brands 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-3 in the opening round Monday in Paris.

“He was trying to hit every ball as hard as he can,” said Nadal, who improved to 37-2 this season with 16 consecutive victories. “He made me suffer, I can tell you.”

The victory improved Nadal’s career record at Roland Garros to 53-1, with the only loss coming in the fourth round in 2009 against Robin Soderling. Up next for Nadal is Slovakia’s Martin Klizan, who reached the second round when Michael Russell of the United States stopped because of a left hamstring injury while trailing 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Defending women’s champion Maria Sharapova needed all of 54 minutes to overpower 42nd-ranked Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan 6-2, 6-1, while 2011 women’s champion Li Na won 6-3, 6-4 against Anabel Medina Garrigues and 2010 championFrancesca Schiavone advanced in straight sets.

No. 4-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, last year’s runner-up at Wimbledon, kept pace with younger sister Urszula - who defeated Venus Williams in a three-set victory a night earlier - by eliminating Shahar Peer 6-1, 6-1.

French wild-card recipient Gael Monfils surprised No. 5 Tomas Berdych 7-6 (8), 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4), 7-5, while Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, at 18 the youngest player in the men’s draw, made a successful Grand Slam debut by eliminating 34-year-old Radek Stepanek 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 7-6 (11).

Most of the attention and buzz, though, was about the way Brands’ match began against Nadal. Brands gave the 11-time major champion Nadal fits and earned raucous cheers from fans who love to back an underdog. When Nadal double-faulted twice in one game, he was broken to fall behind 5-4 in the first set, which Brands then closed with a forehand winner down the line set up by a 134 mph serve.

Brands raced to a 3-0 tiebreaker edge in the second set, four points from a two-sets-tonone lead, when Nadal smacked a forehand winner to get to 3-2, which he punctuated with a yell of “Vamos!”

Then came the first real sign of nerves from Brands. Moving forward, he sliced a backhand approach shot that didn’t work at all as it nestled into the net. Then Brand pushed a forehand wide to make it 4-3, part of a momentum shift during which Nadal grabbed seven of the final eight points in the set.