BASKETBALL

Nuggets’ Forward Martin Out for the Season

The Nuggets forward, Kenyon Martin, will miss the rest of the season because of a bad right knee.

Martin had arthroscopic surgery yesterday, and the team said the operation “revealed more significant damage” than originally thought.

Martin has five years and more than $66 million left on his contract. He played in two games this season, averaging 9.5 points and 10 rebounds.

“I just found out,” the Nuggets player personnel director, Mark Warkentien, told the Associated Press from Belgrade, Serbia, where he was wrapping up a scouting trip. “I’m still taken aback a little bit and I’ll talk to my guys in the morning and assess where we’re at.”

FOOTBALL

Green Gets Medical Clearance, Will Start For Chiefs Sunday

Trent Green is back as Kansas City’s starting quarterback, 10 weeks after a brutal head-snapping hit knocked him unconscious with a severe concussion.

Coach Herm Edwards announced yesterday that Green will start Sunday against Oakland. On Tuesday, the twotime Pro Bowler was given medical clearance to resume full contact. After being out of game action for two months, he’ll play two games in four days. The Chiefs (5–4) host the Raiders on Sunday, then Denver on Thursday night.

“I think he’s going to play well,” Edwards said. “I told him he doesn’t have to put this team on his shoulders by any stretch of the imagination. We still have to play the type of football we’re capable of playing. We’ve got to be able to run the ball. We’ve got to be a balanced offense. I told him just go out and have fun playing quarterback.”

Redskins RB Portis Placed on IR

Clinton Portis’s season was ruined in the first quarter of the first preseason game, when he decided to launch his body into a Cincinnati cornerback, Keiwan Ratliff, while making a tackle following an interception.

Four injuries later, Portis’s season officially ended yesterday, when the Washington Redskins placed their star running back on injured reserve. His final tallies for the season: 127 carries, 523 yards, seven touchdowns, two shoulder injuries, one sprained ankle, one broken bone — and only one costume.

“It was a rough year,” Portis said. “It wasn’t meant for us. It wasn’t meant for me. Over the years, it’s been lovely for me, and now I’m finally running into a bump in my road.”

Portis broke a bone in his right hand in Sunday’s 27–3 loss at Philadelphia. He had surgery Monday and would have been sidelined at least a month.

TENNIS

Blake Makes Semifinals At Masters Cup

James Blake, the last to qualify for the season-ending Masters Cup, became the first to make the semifinals of the elite eight-man field.

The 26-year-old American rallied from a set and a break down, eventually getting his serve on track yesterday to beat third-ranked Nikolay Davydenko 2–6, 6–4, 7–5.

It came two days after eighth-ranked Blake opened with an upset over no. 2 Rafael Nadal, who rebounded to beat Spaniard Tommy Robredo 7–6 (2), 6–2. Those results advanced unbeaten Blake into the semifinals.

“I’m just coming out here with nothing to lose, and trying to prove that I really do belong among these top players,” Blake said. “I like to think that I have by beating two of the top players in the world in consecutive matches.”

HOCKEY

NHL Gets Edge in Battle With Russian Club Over Malkin Defection

Hockey star Evgeni Malkin was cleared to stay with the Pittsburgh Penguins after a federal judge denied a demand by his former Russian club that he be yanked from the NHL.

A Russian Super League team, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, claims Malkin is under contract in his native country. The club sought a preliminary injunction that would have banned the forward from playing for the Penguins until the matter is resolved.

But the ruling yesterday by U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska clears the way for Malkin, a star rookie with the Penguins, and minor leaguers Andrei Taratukhin of the Calgary Flames and Alexei Mikhnov of the Edmonton Oilers to stick with the NHL franchises.

The deal with the International Ice Hockey Federation calls for the NHL to pay a $200,000 fee when it signs European players, but Russian hockey officials declined to sign the agreement on the grounds that they were unfairly compensated for top talent.

— Associated Press