Maria Sharapova wins first title of year

MARIA SHARAPOVA defeated Caroline Wozniacki, 6-2, 6-2, on Sunday to win her first title of the year at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., in a final between two former top-ranked players.

Sharapova dictated from the opening game, when she broke Wozniacki at love with groundstrokes that had the Dane running from side to side. Sharapova faced just two break points on her serve in the nearly 1 1/2-hour match.

It was Sharapova's second career title at Indian Wells, where she first won in 2006. Wozniacki won there in 2011. The women met in a final for the first time; their six other matches came in earlier rounds.

Sharapova is projected to rise one spot in the WTA Tour rankings to No. 2 on Monday, dropping Victoria Azarenka to third.

American Sarah Hendrickson edged Japan's Sara Takanashi to win the season's last women's ski jumping World Cup meet on the large hill at Holmenkollen, in Norway.

* Two-time World Cup winner Martin Fourcade, of France, dominated the men's 15-kilometer mass start race to earn the discipline title, while Gabriela Soukalova, of the Czech Republic, won the women's 12.5-kilometer mass start to complete a hat trick of wins at the season-ending biathlon World Cup event in western Siberia.

* Defending Olympic champion Kim Yu-na, of South Korea, served notice that she will be the one to beat at the 2014 in Sochi when she breezed to the title at the World Figure Skating Championship in London, Ontario, on Saturday. Ashley Wagner (fifth) and Gracie Gold (sixth) reclaimed that all-important third spot for Sochi with the best U.S. showing since 2006,

Aleksandra Duliba, of Belarus, won the 28th Asics Los Angeles Marathon in her marathon debut, and Kenyan Erick Mose won the men's race with a personal best.

* Bright Thought set a world record of 2 minutes, 22.72 seconds for a 1 1/2-mile turf race at Santa Anita, in Arcadia, Calif.