Sports briefs 4/2/05

College

* Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun has been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, The Associated Press learned Friday.

Calhoun was told Thursday that he was elected, according to a source close to the coach who spoke on condition of anonymity. Calhoun was one of 16 finalists for this year's class, which will be formally announced Monday at the Final Four in St. Louis.

Golf

* After Thursday's opening round was washed out, the rain fell at the TPC at Sugarloaf again Friday, postponing the first round of the BellSouth Classic until today.

Weather has affected eight of the 14 tournaments on tour so far this year. The BellSouth will run until Monday, a move that will prevent some of the Masters entrants from practicing in Augusta on Monday.

PGA Tour official Slugger White said the tournament would not go into Tuesday.

White said the goal is to play 18 holes on today and Sunday and 36 on Monday.

Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, the top three players in the world, are skipping the BellSouth to focus on the Masters, which begins on Thursday

Motorsports

It took a strong qualifying run by Elliott Sadler to end Jeff Gordon's hold on the front row at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Sadler ran a lap at 127.733 mph Friday to win the pole, his first since Sept. 2003. It comes at the same track where Sadler scored his first career victory four years ago in the Food City 500.

Dave Blaney qualified second and Rusty Wallace, who has nine Bristol victories, was third.

Gordon, who has qualified on the front row the last six races here, was fourth.

Tennis

The setting, the weather and the crowd favored Andre Agassi. Against Roger Federer, that wasn't enough.

As usual, the top-ranked Federer rose to the occasion and beat Agassi 6-4, 6-3 Friday night in the semifinals of the Nasdaq-100 Open.

Federer hit 30 winners and escaped his biggest jam of the night with three aces in one game to reach the final. He'll bid for his first Key Biscayne title Sunday against 18-year-old Rafael Nadal, who advanced by beating fellow Spaniard David Ferrer 6-4, 6-3.

Unseeded Kim Clijsters, staging a remarkable comeback from a wrist injury that threatened her career, will try for her second title in two weeks when she plays No. 2-seeded Maria Sharapova in the women's final today.