Sports briefs 7/6/05

Baseball

• Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee, who leads the majors with a .378 batting average, left Tuesday night's game against the Atlanta Braves with a shoulder injury.

Lee backed out of the batter's box in apparent pain during his first-inning at-bat. He remained in the game and struck out.

After playing two innings, however, Lee left the game.

The Cubs said Lee left with left shoulder irritation. No further information on the injury or Lee's status was immediately available.

Lee is second in the majors with 25 homers and third in the NL with 67 RBIs.

Basketball

* All-Star guard Ray Allen agreed to a five-year, $85 million contract extension with the Seattle SuperSonics, his agent said Tuesday.

Allen cannot sign the deal until the free-agent signing period begins July 22, but agent Lon Babby said Allen plans on signing the contract at the first available moment.

The contract includes $80 million in salary and $5 million in bonuses, although terms of the bonuses and the yearly breakdown of salary hasn't been determined.

Allen averaged a career-high 23.9 points per game last season -- 10th best in the NBA -- as Seattle shocked the league by winning 52 games and the Northwest Division title.

Golf

* Stephen Ames won the Canadian Skins Game, but the event was all about Jack Nicklaus.

In what was billed as Canada's farewell to the great Golden Bear, the 65-year-old Nicklaus showed he could still compete with younger, longer hitters. He finished second.

Ames collected five skins and $92,443 Tuesday for a two-day total of $120,578.

Nicklaus was followed by John Daly and Vijay Singh in the two-day competition at the Nicklaus North golf course.

Canadian Ames began play Monday by winning two skins and $28,135.

Tennis

* Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko dropped out of the Swiss Open due to an injured wrist during his first-round match against Armenia's Sargis Sargsian on Tuesday.

The Russian won the first set 6-1 and was leading 1-0 in the second when he retired.

Italy's Potito Starace knocked out sixth-seeded Jiri Novak 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-5, No. 2 Gaston Gaudio from Argentina defeated Swiss wildcard George Bastl 7-5, 6-2, and fifth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic from Croatia beat Brazil's Ricardo Mello 6-3, 6-2.

* French Open champions Rafael Nadal, Carlos Moya and Juan Carlos Ferrero moved into the second round of the Swedish Open on Tuesday, putting eight Spanish players in the final 16.

Top-seeded Nadal defeated doubles partner Juan Monaco 6-1, 6-1 at Bastad Tennis Stadion.

Fifth-seeded Ferrero, the 2003 French Open champion, outlasted qualifier Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-1; fourth-seeded Moya, who won the Swedish Open in 2002, beat countryman Alex Calatrava 7-5, 6-2; and defending two-time champion Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina dropped the first set to Raemon Sluiter of the Netherlands, but came back to win 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Track and field

* Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia broke her own world record in the women's pole vault Tuesday, clearing 16 feet, 2 inches at the Athletissima Grand Prix track meet in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Olympic champion set the previous world record of 16-1 3/4 in Brussels last September.