Losing 6-6 Player, Coach Fired

MOSCOW —  The Soviet women’s basketball team today dropped towering center Yuliana Semyonova from its roster for the World Championships and replaced the head coach after the Soviets’ disappointing performance in the Goodwill Games.

Coach Vadim Karranov was replaced by Leonid Yachmenev, coach of the national championship team, Dynamo Novosibirsk, who announced the roster for the six-time world-champion Soviet squad in next month’s competition. His list of players did not include the 34-year-old, 6-foot-6 Semyonova, who played for the Soviet team that lost the gold medal to the United States in the Goodwill Games earlier this month.