IN BRIEF (Page 24)

NHL

Red Wings beat Blues to return to winning ways

DETROIT: Pavel Datsyuk scored twice to lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, their first back-to-back victories in a month.

While it was far from a dominating display by the NHL's top team, the sputtering Red Wings are now 2-0 in March and back to winning ways following a dismal February in which they enjoyed just one win in 11 games.

The February slump proved costly for the injury-riddled Red Wings, whose commanding 17-point lead atop the Western Conference standings was cut to just five by the charging Dallas Stars.

TENNIS

Murray narrowly through as two seeds fall in Dubai

DUBAI: Andy Murray, who caused a great upset by beating world No 1 Roger Federer, followed it on Wednesday by almost stumbling to defeat to a relative unknown.

The 20-year-old Briton had to survive a jittery final set tie-break before getting through 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (5) against Fernando Verdasco, the world No 30 from Spain.

Murray now has a chance to capitalize against an opponent, Nikolay Davydenko, whom he has beaten on the last three occasions. The fifth-seeded Russian came through with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic.

Benneteau upsets Hewitt in Las Vegas Open

LOS ANGELES: Second seed and defending champion Lleyton Hewitt was upset 6-3, 7-5 by Frenchman Julien Benneteau to cap a day of surprises at the Las Vegas Open on Wednesday.

Australian Hewitt, a three-time winner of the tournament, had reached the final in five of his six previous appearances in the event.

Fifth seed Potito Starace and No 8 Nicolas Kiefer were also knocked out.

Benneteau, the world No 61, failed on his first attempt to serve out the match but broke Hewitt again and held to set up a clash with unseeded American Sam Querrey who needed less than an hour to eliminate Kiefer.

Olympics

Baseball hopefuls eye final tilt in Beijing

TORONTO: With baseball making its final appearance at this year's Beijing Olympics, a little more that usual will be riding on the outcome of the final eight-team qualifying tournament.

Mexico, Canada, South Korea, South Africa, Australia, Britain, Spain and Chinese Taipei will compete in a round-robin tournament from March 7-14 with the top three advancing to Beijing.

Those teams will join host China, the United States, Cuba, the Netherlands and Japan, who have already qualified.

With baseball to be dropped from the Olympic program along with softball for the 2012 London Games, the fight for qualifying slots should be fierce.

Cricket

Loudspeaker teases Taylor to century

HAMILTON, New Zealand: A loudspeaker announcement detailing his previous highest Test score helped inspire New Zealand's Ross Taylor to his maiden Test century on the second day of the first Test against England yesterday.

Taylor scored 120 in New Zealand's first innings of 470 and combined in a record seventh-wicket partnership of 148 with Daniel Vettori. New Zealand then had England at 87 for two in reply at stumps.

The 23-year-old Central Districts batsman had strode to the wicket on the first day and, as has been tradition at Seddon Park with all incoming batsmen, his Test statistics were announced to the crowd over the loudspeaker system.

(China Daily 03/07/2008 page24)