Tournament

Venus Williams drew a crowd Friday night at the Farmers Insurance Classic, the line snaking through the crowded grounds of the Los Angeles Tennis Center with fans eager to get autographs on their copies of Venus' book, "Come to Win." Williams was dressed impeccably, her silver earrings twinkling in the evening lights, her hair pulled into a prim bun. She wore a long and muted gray-colored sweater that reached her knees, and black jeans. Her entire look said "author." There was nothing that said "tennis."

The U.S. men's volleyball team moved to within a victory of a spot in this summer's Olympic Games by beating Cuba, 21-25, 25-18, 25-16, 25-16, on Friday in the semifinals of the NORCECA qualifying tournament played before a near-capacity crowd at Long Beach State. But first the American had to overcome a slow start that led to a first-set scare in which Cuba scored four points on service aces and got seven points overall from hard-hitting Fernando Hernandez for their only set loss of the tournament . That would end up being the night's lone bright spot for the young Cubans, though.

Jan. 31, 2010 Position No. 6092: Black to play and win. From the game Jozsef Pinter-Fabian Platzgummer, Austria 2010. Solution to Position No. 6091: Black wins a piece by 1 . . . Nf4+ 2 Kh6 (not 2 Kh4? Bf2 mate) Nd5+ 3 Kh5 (not 3 Kh7? Nf6 mate) Nf6+ 4 Kh4 Bf2+ 5 Kh3 Rg3+ 6 Kh2 Ng4+ 7 Kh1 Ne3 8 Be6 Rg7. Instead, 6 Kh4 allows mate by 6 . . . Rg7+! 7 Kh3 Nh5! 8 Kh2 Nf4 9 Bc2 Rg4. The Corus tournament ends today in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. You can watch the final round live at coruschess.

Rafael Nadal became the first player in the Open Era to win two tournaments seven times after beating David Ferrer , 7-6 (1), 7-5, in Sunday's Barcelona Open final in Spain. The second-ranked Nadal's 21st straight victory on clay followed up his eighth straight win in Monte Carlo, as Nadal won the 10th all-Spanish ATP final for the 48th win of his career. The sixth-ranked Ferrer lost his fourth Barcelona Open final to Nadal, who saved 12 of 15 break points for a 34th straight victory at Barcelona.

Underground Tournament League Streetfighter IV tournament Where: 3201 Maple Ave., Los Angeles When: Saturday, 2-5 p.m. registration; 5-10 p.m. competition Price: $10 cover and $10 registration to play, must be 18 or older. Contact: www.theugtl.com.

Since 1961, the city has hosted the Charlie Saikley 6-Man Volleyball Tournament. But attendance has grown to 60,000, and businesses and residents complain about excessive partying and trash. [body]You might find 3,000 people on the sand on the average summer Saturday in Manhattan Beach. Except when the Charlie Saikley 6-Man Volleyball Tournament comes to town. Then serious volleyball mixes with outrageous partying. Olympic gold medalists and other top pros may play a team dressed as WWE wrestlers or a squad dressed as Magnum P.I., down to the Tom Selleck mustaches and Hawaiian shirts.

What: Mercury Insurance Open Where: La Costa resort, Carlsbad Monday night schedule Not before 7 p.m. Alona Bondarenko, Ukraine, vs. Dinara Safina, Russia; Su-Wei Hsieh, Taipei, and Meghann Shaughnessy vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russia, and Vera Zvonareva, Russia.

The great programming migration to cable continues. Turner Broadcasting, just one week after signing former NBC late-night host Conan O'Brien, has teamed up with CBS in a 14-year, $10.8-billion deal for television and Internet rights to the immensely popular NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament. The move comes as broadcast television struggles with rising programming costs and greater competition for viewers and advertisers. Although the NCAA tournament is a strong performer for CBS, the costs of covering the games were starting to outweigh the benefits for the network.

Top-seeded teams No. 1 Duke: The Blue Devils are the defending national champions and are coming off the high of winning the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. No. 2 San Diego State: The Aztecs have never won an NCAA tournament game, so this is heady territory, being seeded second to Duke. This is the first 30-win season in history for the team as well. No. 3 Connecticut: The Huskies won five straight games to become Big East tournament champions Saturday night.

Grant Rohach, the standout quarterback at Moorpark High, just got back after spending five days in Iowa on his grandfather's farm, helping feed cows and goats. "It's very quiet," he said. "There's not a lot of people. " It was one of the few breaks Rohach will get this summer, because high school athletes simply don't have time to stop training. "You wake up in the morning. It's not, 'I'm going to the beach today.' I have football," Rohach said. "It's just a continuous thing.

It remains to be determined whether UC Irvine is the best men's volleyball team in the nation. The Anteaters can probably already lay claim to being the most resilient. Just as they did in their semifinal victory over top-ranked USC, Irvine spotted Stanford a two-set lead and then came back to win the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament championship Saturday night at the Galen Center. The Anteaters' 20-25, 25-27, 25-21, 25-21, 15-12 victory advanced them to the Final Four for the third time in six years.

Friday in Ojai was a day best suited for canvas and watercolors. Also, because it was Ojai, for tennis. We live in an era where tradition means you did the same thing last year. In Ojai, their tennis tradition runs a bit deeper. This weekend's tournament, simply called "The Ojai" because that's all that is needed, is the 112th. Some of the trees surrounding the courts in Libbey Park look as if they were there when this all started. To be clear, this is no collection of hackers in green shorts and cheap rackets.

Alhambra super-heavyweight Dominic Breazeale is among seven American boxers who will try to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic boxing team starting next week in Rio de Janeiro. Breazeale and four others have been training in Carson at a facility known as "the Rock," including light-flyweight Santos Vasquez of Reno, lightweight Jose Ramirez of Avenal, light-welterweight Jamel Herring of Coram, N.Y., and middleweight Terrell Gausha of Cleveland. The final Americas qualifier tournament in Brazil on May 5-13 will require a minimum top-five finish by the fighters to land a spot on the U.S. team, otherwise the weight class will be vacated by the U.S. in the London Games.

Quarterback Matt Barkley made big news when he announced he was passing on the NFL draft to stay for his senior season at USC. But another USC standout did the same with far less fanfare. Steve Johnson, the reigning NCAA men's singles champion, opted to stay at USC for his senior season -- and a chance to lead the tennis team to a fourth consecutive NCAA title -- rather than turn pro right away. Johnson has won 55 singles matches in a row. The Trojans will play in the Pac-12 Championships at the Ojai Valley Tennis Championships on April 25-29.

The 30th anniversary of one of college basketball's landmark games has arrived. Three years after Magic Johnson beat Larry Bird, and a year before North Carolina State shocked Houston, North Carolina in 1982 edged Georgetown, 63-62, in a riveting championship game. It was Michael Jordan's first of many clutch performances, Coach Dean Smith's first title. And James Worthy capped a most-outstanding-player tournament by scoring 28 points and gladly accepting a game-clinching mistaken pass by Georgetown's Fred Brown in the final seconds.

A couple of years ago, there were only 24 tournaments on the LPGA Tour schedule. And in a controversial moment only a year ago, players were asked to donate all prize money from one tour event to charities rather than their own bank accounts. But now, the LPGA is heading into its first major of the year, the Kraft Nabisco Championship beginning Thursday at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, on a high note. Defending champion Stacy Lewis announced Wednesday that she had signed a sponsorship deal with KPMG, an audit, tax and advisory firm.

The U.S. entered the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament with high expectations. But it's going home empty-handed after Jaime Alas' goal in stoppage time lifted El Salvador to a 3-3 tie in the final game of group play Monday in Nashville, ending the Americans' Olympic soccer dreams. The U.S. was about a minute shy of the victory it needed to advance to the tournament semifinals as the winner of its group when Alas charged up the center of the American defense and uncorked a blast from 25 yards out that bounced once before eluding backup U.S. keeper Sean Johnson, who got a hand on the shot but couldn't stop it. That not only knocked the U.S. out of the tournament, but also it changed El Salvador's fortunes, with the Central Americans leaping from elimination to the top of the Group A standings ahead of Canada, which tied Cuba, 1-1, in Monday's first game and advances as the group runner-up.

Three years ago, Louisville sophomore center Gorgui Dieng couldn't speak English. Last year, he didn't know how the NCAA tournament worked. When Morehead State eliminated Louisville in the first round, Dieng said he asked his coaches, "Why can't we play anymore?" He wasn't kidding. "I had no idea," he said. "I didn't know Sweet 16 last year. Honest. " Louisville has come a long way to reach its first Final Four since 2005, after finishing seventh in the Big East Conference.