King: 3 sets only for men in majors

Billie Jean King would like to see men playing best-of-three-set matches at Grand Slam tournaments.

The tennis great, who fought for equal rights and equal prize money in her playing days, said Thursday that men and women should play the same amount of sets at major tournaments like they do on the ATP and WTA tours.

“Personally, I don’t want the men playing five sets anymore. I think it takes too much out of them,” King said at a WTA Finals event in Singapore.

Men play best-of-five sets at the four Grand Slam tournaments, but play best-of-three elsewhere.

Golf

Fred Couples withdrew from the Toshiba Classic in Newport Beach, Calif., because of back pain. Couples hasn’t played a tournament since tying for sixth in January in Hawaii in the season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship. He has 13 victories on the 50-and-over tour after winning 15 times on the PGA Tour.

• Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia, will stage a European Tour event Jan. 31-Feb. 3. It will be the first European Tour event in Saudi Arabia.

• Pablo Larrazabal awoke with a start, just 38 minutes before his teeoff time in the first round of the Indian Open in New Delhi. Didn’t matter, though, as the Spaniard made nine birdies along with two bogeys and a double to shoot 5-under 67, tied for second with Paul Peterson and Matteo Manassero, two shots behind leader Emiliano Grillo.

College hockey

Robert Morris senior forward Brady Ferguson repeated on the Atlantic Hockey All-Conference first team. Ferguson had 40 points fort he Colonials, who open a bestof-three series Friday at Holy Cross in the AHC quarterfinals.

Iditarod

Mushers from Norway are in the top two spots at the halfway point of the Iditarod dog sled race. Joar Ulsom leads the race, and he pocketed $3,000 in gold nuggets for being the first musher to reach the halfway point when he pulled into the ghost town of Iditarod, Alaska. Norwegian Lars Monsen is in second.