Off the wire

GOLF Oosthuizen leads

Song leads by 2

Jennifer Song shot an opening 7-under 65 to take a two-stroke lead at the Women’s World Championship in Singapore on Thursday. The 28-year-old American reeled off seven birdies at the Sentosa Golf Club in a round that was interrupted for two hours by lightning. Michelle Wie and Ji Eun-Hee (both 67) were tied for second while another nine players finished a further stroke back at 4 under. Top-ranked Shanshan Feng (70) bogeyed the last hole and No. 2 Lexi Thompson (75) struggled in making five bogeys.

BASKETBALL Brewer to Thunder

Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Corey Brewer will sign with the Oklahoma City Thunder after he clears waivers. The move was confirmed by Brewer’s agent, Happy Walters, on Thursday. The Lakers agreed to a buyout with the 6-foot-9 Brewer on Wednesday. He will help fill the void Andre Roberson left for the Thunder when he ruptured his left patellar tendon and was lost for the season. The Thunder have started multiple players with limited results since the injury. Brewer, 31, averaged 3.7 points in 54 games with the Lakers this season. He has career averages of 8.8 points and 2.8 rebounds per game. Brewer played for Thunder Coach Billy Donovan on Florida’s 2006 and 2007 national championship teams.

BASEBALL

Texas Wesleyan fires coach Texas Wesleyan has fired head baseball coach Mike Jeffcoat (Pine Bluff). Texas Wesleyan President Fred Slabach and Athletic Director Steve Trachier made the announcement during a news conference Thursday. The announcement comes less than 24 hours after the former Texas Rangers pitcher made controversial remarks about Colorado politicians and the state’s marijuana laws. Jeffcoat stated that he and the program would not recruit from Colorado because players from there might fail a drug test. The comments were sent in an email to Gavin Bell, 18, a senior at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, Colo., who had expressed interest in the private Fort Worth university. At the news conference, Slabach said Jeffcoat “was separated from the university due to the discriminatory remarks contained in an email to a potential recruit from the state of Colorado and for another factor that we have been investigating for the last week. This additional factor is an NAIA rule violation that has recently come to our attention.” Slabach would not go into detail about the rule violation, but he did say it concerned the “eligibility of players.”

TRACK AND FIELD Lysenko wins duel

Danil Lysenko reversed his world outdoors result with Mutaz Essa Barshim by winning their world indoors high jump duel at Birmingham, England, on his last leap Thursday. Lysenko, an authorized neutral athlete, and Barshim of Qatar cleared three heights on their first attempts and were the only two to attempt 2.36 meters. Barshim, the IAAF male athlete of 2017, failed at his first two attempts as did Lysenko. Barshim let out a roar before his third attempt but again failed. Lysenko, 20, asked for quiet from the Arena Birmingham crowd and — after a tense wait — soared over. Lysenko lost to Barshima at the world championships last year. Mateusz Przybylko of Germany was third, after failing to clear 2.33, along with Erik Kynard of the United States.

TENNIS

Pouille advances Lucas Pouille moved to within a victory of reaching three consecutive tennis finals when he overcame Yuichi Sugita 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the Dubai Championships on Thursday. Standing between the Frenchman and a place in the final is seventh-seed Filip Krajinovic of Serbia, who beat Evgeny Donskoy of Russia 6-1, 6-2. Malek Jaziri of Tunisia won the matchup of wild cards when he defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Jaziri, who knocked out top seed Grigor Dimitrov in the first round, will meet third-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain in the semifinals. Bautista Agut defeated Borna Coric of Croatia 7-6 (4), 6-4 to reach the Dubai semifinals for the first time in six attempts.

Wawrinka to skip U.S. Three-time Grand Slam singles champion Stan Wawrinka is skipping hard-court events in the United States to rest his injured left knee. Wawrinka said in a statement he will miss the Masters-level Indian Wells and Miami events to prepare for the European clay-court season. The 2015 French Open champion said “coming back from a big surgery is complicated” and his body needs more time to heal. Wawrinka, who will turn 33 during the Miami Open this month, ended his 2017 season with knee surgery in August. He lost in the Australian Open second round in January, then the first round at the Rotterdam indoor tournament, before retiring from his second-round match last week in Marseille, France. Wawrinka’s ranking has dropped to No. 12.

MOTOR SPORTS

Mercedes leads testing Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes led the fourth day of Formula One tests on Thursday, when teams made up for lost time caused by bad weather. It was a busy day at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona at Montmelo, Spain, after snowfall and cold temperatures kept most cars in the garage on Wednesday. Temperatures improved Thursday for the final session of the week, and teams immediately sent out their cars. Hamilton posted a lap of 1 minute, 19.333 seconds, the best of the week. The British driver was a half-second faster than Stoffel Vandoorne of McLaren, who had his time on the faster hypersoft tires. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, last year’s runner-up in the drivers’ championship, was third-fastest, nearly a second behind Hamilton. Pierre Gasly’s Honda-powered Toro Rosso led the lap charts with 147. Vettel was next with 120 laps, followed by Vandoorne’s 110. Hamilton ended the day with 69. There will be another four-day test session in Barcelona starting Tuesday. The season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne is March 25.

FOOTBALL

Kelly has cancer again Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly he has once again been diagnosed with oral cancer. Kelly released a statement Thursday through his publicist saying he is “shocked and deeply saddened” by the news, and vows to once again to fight to overcome the disease. He did not go into specifics on the diagnoses except to say the cancer was discovered following a test. Kelly, 58, had been cancer-free since September 2014, but had been required to undergo follow-up testing every six months. Kelly’s battle with cancer began in June 2013, when he had surgery to remove cancerous cells in his upper jaw. The cancer then spread to his sinus in March 2014. Kelly then spent two months undergoing a barrage of treatments that left him in a weakened state but successfully removed the cancerous cells.