Tuesday Sports in Brief

TENNIS

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) - Ash Barty surprisingly retired from tennis at age 25 while ranked No. 1 and less than two months after winning the Australian Open for her third Grand Slam singles title.

'œI'm so happy and I'm so ready. I just know at the moment, in my heart, for me as a person, this is right,'ť Barty said, her voice shaky at times, during a six-minute video posted on her Instagram account Wednesday in Australia.

Saying it was time to 'œchase other dreams,'ť Barty said she no longer feels compelled to do what she knows is required to be the best she can be at tennis.

Barty won major championships on three different surfaces - on clay at the 2019 French Open, on grass at Wimbledon last year and on the hard courts of Melbourne Park in January.

She won 15 tour-level titles in singles and another 12 in doubles since first turning pro in 2010. She spent 121 weeks at No. 1 in the rankings, including the last 114 in a row.

MADRID (AP) - Rafael Nadal will be sidelined for four to six weeks because of a rib injury, putting in jeopardy his preparations for the French Open in two months.

Nadal said Tuesday he underwent exams after arriving in Spain from the United States and results showed he has a stress fracture on one of his left ribs.

The injury was sustained in the semifinals at Indian Wells against Carlos Alcaraz. Nadal then lost in the final to Taylor Fritz in two sets on Sunday.

MLB

Automatic runners in extra innings are sticking around for a third straight season.

Despite an easing of pandemic restrictions, Major League Baseball and the players' association reached a tentative agreement to keep the controversial rule starting each team with a runner on second base during extra innings for the 2022 regular season.

The deal is subject to approval by baseball owners, which likely will take place next week, a person familiar with the agreement said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement was authorized. The agreement was first reported by the New York Post.

- By Baseball Writer Ronald Blum.

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. (AP) - New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and five players from the World Series champion Atlanta Braves are among 31 players headed toward salary arbitration hearings that will occur during the regular season after they failed to reach contracts and exchanged figures with their teams.

Judge can become a free agent after the World Series, and the outfielder and the team say they want to discuss a long-term deal to keep him in the Bronx. Judge has asked New York for $21 million, while the Yankees have offered $17 million, up from $10,175,000 last year.

Meanwhile, Atlanta general manager Alex Anthopoulos could wind up with potentially awkward hearings against third baseman Austin Riley, shortstop Dansby Swanson, outfielder Adam Duvall and pitchers Max Fried and Luke Jackson. Anthopoulos told The Athletic on Tuesday that Atlanta's clubhouse was 'œrattled'ť when popular slugger Freddie Freeman left for the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent after Anthopoulos traded for Matt Olson from Oakland.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Missouri is hiring wildly successful Cleveland State coach Dennis Gates to help rebuild a long-floundering program that has churned through seven head and interim coaches since Norm Stewart prowled the sidelines in Columbia.

The university's Board of Curators approved Gates' hiring on Tuesday.

The 42-year-old Gates took over Cleveland State's program in 2019 and, after winning just 11 games in his first season, engineered one of the biggest turnarounds in Division I basketball. The Vikings went 19-8 and made the NCAA Tournament last season, then went 20-11 and lost in the first round of the NIT this season.

Gates replaces Cuonzo Martin, who was fired after his third losing season in five years at Missouri.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Tulsa has named Eric Konkol its new men's basketball coach.

Konkol compiled a 153-75 record in seven seasons at Louisiana Tech. He had six seasons with at least 20 wins and finished in the top three in the Conference USA standings five times.

Konkol was a student assistant coach for Tulsa's 2001 NIT championship team under coach Buzz Peterson. Konkol was on the staffs at Tennessee, George Mason and Miami (Fla.) before taking over at Louisiana Tech in 2015.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina and Chattanooga's Lamont Paris have reached a five-year deal for him to become the next men's basketball coach, a person with direct knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Tuesday because South Carolina has not announced the deal, which was first reported by ESPN. Any hiring would have to be approved by the school's board of trustees before it becomes official.

Paris would take over for Frank Martin, who was fired last week after 10 seasons with just one NCAA Tournament appearance. He would become the first Black men's basketball head coach at South Carolina.

Paris went 27-8 this season with Chattanooga, winning the Southern Conference regular season and tournament titles.

- By AP Sports Writer Pete Iacobelli.

DALLAS (AP) - SMU coach Tim Jankovich announced his retirement Tuesday after six seasons as head coach of the Mustangs, and nearly four decades in a coaching career that included stints as an assistant for Larry Brown and Bill Self.

The 62-year-old Jankovich was head coach at Illinois State from 2008-12, before he left the Redbirds to join SMU's staff when Brown took the job there. Jankovich succeeded the Hall of Famer as head coach before the 2016-17 season, when the Mustangs went 30-5 and made their last NCAA Tournament appearance.

SMU was 24-9 this season, which ended Sunday in the second round of the NIT with a 75-63 loss to Washington State that was its only home defeat this season.

GOLF

DETROIT (AP) - Oakland Hills Country Club, reeling from a fire that destroyed its century-old clubhouse last month, has landed the U.S. Open in 2034 and 2051.

The USGA made the announcement Tuesday at the Detroit Athletic Club. The governing body also says Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania, previously scheduled to have the U.S. Open in 2034, will host the major in 2033.

Oakland Hills has hosted six U.S. Opens and has been trying for years to attract a seventh, and first since 1996. The club has hosted a slew of other significant professional and amateur golf events, including three PGA Championships and the 2004 Ryder Cup.

OLYMPICS

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) - Olympic weightlifting champion Nijat Rahimov was stripped of his 2016 gold medal and banned for eight years for doping on Tuesday.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said the Kazakh lifter was guilty of 'œfour urine substitutions'ť and disqualified from all his results since March 2016.

Rahimov's world record at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics was controversial even at the time. It came one year after he served a previous ban for doping while competing for Azerbaijan.

OBITUARY

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) - Elnardo Webster, who put Saint Peter's basketball on the map more than a half century ago in leading the Peacocks to the NIT semifinals in 1968, has died. He was 74.

Webster died on Tuesday in Morristown, New Jersey, after being hospitalized with a heart issue, former teammates said.

Webster led Saint Peter's to a 100-71 win over Duke in the second round in the NIT, finishing with 29 points and 14 rebounds. The team lost to Kansas in the semifinals 58-46 and then lost to Notre Dame 81-78 in the consolation game. Webster scored in double figures in all 28 games that year.

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