Venus and Serena Williams also win: Roger Federer survived a tough match on his least favorite surface today, rallying from a 5-1 deficit in the third set to beat Jose Acasuso in the second round of the French Open in Paris. Federer reached the last three finals at Roland Garros, but the clay-court major remains the only one of the four Grand Slam tournaments he hasn’t won. Venus Williams also came close to an early exit, needing to save a match point before defeating Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic. Fifth-seeded Jelena Jankovic joined the seven-time Grand Slam champion in the third round by defeating Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia, and Serena Williams easily beat Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain.
NCAA looking at Memphis: The University of Memphis is responding to NCAA allegations that the men’s basketball program committed major violations during the 2007-08 season under John Calipari, according to published reports. The allegations include “knowing fraudulence or misconduct” on an SAT exam by a player on that season’s team, which finished runner-up in the NCAA tournament, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported on its Web site. Sources told ESPN.com that Derrick Rose was the player in question. He played only one season for Memphis before being selected as the first pick in the 2008 draft by the Chicago Bulls. Luther Topps, who coached Rose’s AAU team, told the Chicago Sun-Times he thinks the NCAA believes a former high school teammate took the SAT for Rose. Calipari left Memphis after last season to become the coach at Kentucky.
Play ball: Most of the local attention on this weekend’s Baton Rouge NCAA baseball regional has been on hometown favorites LSU and Southern. The Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald has a profile of Kendal Volz, a hard-throwing right-hander for Baylor. Volz, a junior, has been one of the aces for the Bears, serving as a starter during the season and a closer in the Big 12 tournament. He’s projected as a possible first round pick in next week’s Major League Baseball draft. “My expectations when I go out there are to put up a zero every time,” Volz told the newspaper. “To put it in a game perspective, I expect to throw nine innings and shut everybody out.” Read the profile here. Baylor plays Minnesota at 6 p.m. Friday.
