* At the $3.45-million Nasdaq-100 Open tennis tournament in Miami, Florida (through April 2):
- Fourth seed Maria Sharapova fought hard to advance to the final, defeating Tatiana Golovin (22) of France, who had to retire at 3-4 in the third set due to an ankle injury. Sharapova won the first set 6:3, but lost the second on a tiebreak
- Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded 12, cruised into the final with a surprisingly quick 6-1, 6-4 victory over world No.1 Amelie Mauresmo in another Russian-French semifinal, in 1 hour 18 minutes. The all-Russian final is set for April 1.
* Russian and Indian chess players, Alexander Morozevich (world no. 11) and Viswanathan Anand (no. 3) shared the title at the $260,000 Amber Rapid and Blindfold Chess Tournament in Monaco. The world's top players competed in separate rapid chess and blindfold round-robin mini-matches with prizes for each event, alongside the best combined score.
Morozevich took a stunning victory in the blindfold with 9.5 points out of 11, a new Amber tournament record, while Anand was the best in the rapid competition with 8 points.
Final standings (combined score):
1-2 Alexander Morozevich (11), Viswanathan Anand (3) - 14.5 points
3 Francisco Vallejo (54, Spain) - 12 points
4 Alexander Grishchuk (12, Russia) - 11.5
5-6 Veselin Topalov (2, Bulgaria), Peter Leko (7, Hungary) - 11 points
7-8 Levon Aronian (5, Armenia), Boris Gelfand (9, Israel) - 10.5 points
9 Loek Van Wely (54, Netherlands) - 10 points
10 Pyotr Svidler (4, Russia) - 8.5 points
11 Vasiliy Ivanchuk (8, Ukraine) - 9 points
12 Peter Heine Nielsen (66, Denmark) - 8 points
* Russia's national under-17 soccer team is currently in first place in Group 7 of the 2006 UEFA European Under-17 Championship's second qualifying stage, the Elite round, being held in Britain through April 1. Russia tied with Italy in the second leg 0:0, while England drew with Bulgaria (0:0), who Russia defeated 5:0 in the first leg. Russia will face England in the remaining match on April 1. The group winner will take enter the eight-team finals in Luxembourg, which run from May 3 through May 14:
Group 7 standings after Game 2:
1 Russia - 4 points/goal difference 5-0
2-3 England - 2/2-2
2-3 Italy - 2/2-2
4 Bulgaria - 1/0-5
* Russian biathletes gained a landslide victory in the men's 15 km mass start at the IBU Grand Prix 2006, being held in the Siberian city of Khanty-Mansiisk. Maksim Tchudov won the gold, Ivan Cherezov the silver, and Andrei Makoveyev finished third.
* Russian biathlete Olga Zaitseva won the gold in women's 12.5 km mass start at the IBU Grand Prix 2006. Her teammate Natalya Guseva won the silver, and Bulgaria's Ekaterina Dafovska took the bronze
* Zenit St. Petersburg, Russia's lone survivor in this season's European soccer club competitions, lost the first leg of its UEFA Cup two-way quarterfinals series with Sevilla 1:4 in Spain. The second leg of the tie is set for April 6, in St. Petersburg.
* Dinamo St. Petersburg beat Sibirtelekom-Lokomotiv Novosibirsk, 86:68 at home, to reach to second place in the Russian men's basketball national championships regular season.
Russian men's basketball SuperLeague Division A standings:
1 CSKA Moscow - 42 points (after 22 games)
2 Dinamo St. Petersburg - 40 (22)
3 Khimky Moscow Region - 39 (22)
4 UNICS Kazan - 36 (20)
5 Dinamo Moscow - 35 (21)
6 Dinamo Moscow Region - 35 (22)
7 Ural-Great Perm - 33 (21)
8 Lokomotiv-Rostov Rostov-on-Don - 30 (22)
9 Spartak VGUES Primorye - 29 (23)
10 CSK VVS Samara - 27 (22)
11 Sibirtelekom-Lokomotiv Novosibirsk - 27 (22)
12 Spartak St. Petersburg - 26 (22)
13 Universitet-Ugra Surgut - 24 (21)
