Sporting Digest: Tennis

GREAT BRITAIN'S women were knocked out of the European Women's Team Championship in Sheffield yesterday despite an encouraging win by the British No 1, Clare Wood. Wood levelled the first-round match with the Netherlands at 1-1 following a victory over the higher- ranked Stephanie Rottier. Mandy Wainwright had lost the opening singles to Kristie Boogert. However, Wood's hard work proved to be in vain when she teamed up with Devon's Valda Lake to lose the deciding doubles 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 to Boogert and Petra Kamstra.

EUROPEAN WOMEN'S TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS (Sheffield) First round: Great Britain 1 Netherlands 2 (M Wainwright lost to K Boogert 6-7 1-6; C Wood bt S Rottier 7-5 6-3; Wood and V Lake lost to Boogert and P Kamstra 2-6 6-4 1-6). Italy 3 Sweden 0 (R Grande bt M Vallin 6-3 6-4; S Cecchini bt A Carlsson 6-7 6-3 6-2; G and L Garrone bt Carlsson and M Lindstrom 6-3 6-3.

TODD WOODBRIDGE and Mark Woodforde made a poor start to their defence of their ATP World Doubles Championship in Johannesburg yesterday. The second seeds dropped the first set to the seventh seeds, Tom Nijssen and Cyril Suk, before pulling through 6-7, 6-3, 6-2.

ATP WORLD DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIP (Johannesburg): Round-robin: Forbes-Segal group: J Eltingh and P Haarhuis (Neth) bt S Casal and E Sanchez (Sp) 6-2 6-4; T Woodbridge and M Woodforde (Aus) bt T Nijssen (Neth) and C Suk (Cz Rep) 6-7 6-3 6-2. Hewitt-McMillan group: G Connell (Can) and P Galbraith (US) bt M Kratzmann and W Masur (Aus) 6-4 6-4; D Adams (Aus) and A Olhovskiy (Rus) bt L Jensen and M Jensen (US) 6-3 6-4.