Submitted by admin on Sat, 2005-11-05 09:00. ::
Top-seeded Andy Roddick saved two match points Friday before beating David Ferrer 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10-8) to reach the semifinals of the Paris Masters.
Roddick, who faced both match points in the third-set tiebreaker, will play sixth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic today. Ljubicic reached the semifinals with a 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 6-1 win against Tommy Robredo.
Eighth-seeded Radek Stepanek, last year's runner-up, will face unseeded Tomas Berdych in the other semifinal. Stepanek advanced with a 7-5, 6-4 win against Nikolay Davydenko, while Berdych advanced past seventh-seeded Gaston Gaudio 7-5, 6-0.
"If I get broken eight times and win the match, then I'd rather have that than hold serve 400 straight times," Roddick said. "I don't really care about it. By no means do I feel invincible."
Ljubicic won the match with a smash, and then whacked a ball into the crowd. Ljubicic claimed the last berth in the eight-man Masters Cup with Gaudio's loss.
Elena Dementieva beat Kveta Peschke 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 to reach the semifinals of the Advanta Championships in Villanova, Pa., and claim the eighth and final berth in next week's WTA Tour Championships.
Dementieva joins Lindsay Davenport, Kim Clijsters, defending champion Maria Sharapova, Amelie Mauresmo, Mary Pierce, Patty Schnyder and Nadia Petrova at the elite eight-women event beginning Monday in Los Angeles.
A former Penn State women's basketball player started a discrimination complaint against Nittany Lions coach Rene Portland, filing paperwork in State College, Pa., claiming that she was harassed by the coach to change her appearance because she was not "feminine enough."
The attorney for Jennifer Harris cited sex and race as the basis for charges of "discrimination, retaliation and harassment" in paperwork filed with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
Harris, who is black, said in the filings that she told former University of Colorado coach Portland that she was not comfortable in changing her appearance, and that Portland then "treated me differently from other team members" and "threatened and humiliated me" to try get Harris to quit or take a leave of absence.
Former Fresno State basketball coach Ray Lopes and his staff made hundreds of phone calls to recruits, a violation that could lead to a self-imposed postseason ban.
Fresno State spokeswoman Shirley Armbruster confirmed the school was notified by the NCAA about phone call violations, but she declined further comment.
Former La Salle men's basketball players Gary Neal and Michael Cleaves were acquitted of several sexual assault charges by a jury in Philadelphia.
A report in the London Evening Standard attributed a quote to an anonymous family friend saying that Ali, who has battled Parkinson's for years, "may only have months to live."
Harlan Werner, Ali's marketing agent, insisted his client is healthy, telling the BBC's Web site: "Muhammad is fine and he has numerous appearances lined up. He had surgery on his back and was in therapy for that, but that had nothing to do with Parkinson's. He is fine."
As the propaganda head of Lianyungang, China, Wu Jiaqing's chief mission is to carry the Chinese Communist Party's message to the people in the economically struggling port city.
But lately, he has overseen a campaign to get Beijing to select a local icon - a mischievous magical monkey from Chinese folklore - as the mascot for the 2008 Olympic Games.
While the panda, China's best- known animal, might seem the odds-on favorite to be the pick for 2008 when the selection is announced Nov. 11, sharp competition has erupted among a handful of poor areas vying to have their local symbols chosen.
Three western provinces straddling the Tibetan plateau are pushing the Tibetan antelope. The semitropical Yunnan province wants the golden-haired monkey. The arid Gansu province favors the mythical dragon.
Brazil's Renato Da Rosa scored 90.25 points on Doug Butcher Bucking Bull's Shallow Hal to win the fifth round of the Professional Bull Riders' $3.2 million Built Ford Tough World Finals in Las Vegas.
Da Rosa, who earned $20,000, edged countryman Helton Luiz Da Silva (87.5 on Honkey Cat) and rodeo average leader Jody Newberry (87.25 on Carissa Plains).
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