Sports in Brief

Times wires
Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Soccer

Rout puts Man U in Champions final

MANCHESTER, England — After rolling past Schalke, Manchester United has a chance to avenge its loss to Barcelona in the 2009 Champions League final.

Anderson scored twice as it beat Schalke 4-1 on Wednesday for a 6-1 aggregate victory in the Champions League semifinals.

Manchester United will seek its fourth title when it plays Barcelona, also a three-time champion, at Wembley Stadium on May 28. Barcelona won the 2009 final 2-0 in Rome.

"Barcelona plays extremely good football. It's going to be difficult," United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar said. "We have to make sure we learned our lesson from (two years ago); be better prepared and deal with them in a different way."

United coach Alex Ferguson used a lineup with mostly backups, retaining just three players from the starting 11 that lost to Arsenal in the Premier League last weekend. United, up by three points in England's top league, faces second-place Chelsea on Sunday.

Still, United had no problems with the German club. It had the largest margin of victory in the tournament's home-and-home, total-goals semifinal since AC Milan defeated Real Madrid 6-1 in 1989.

"I didn't sleep last night thinking about it," Ferguson said. "They did me proud."

Tennis

Federer ekes one out; Nadal, Djokovic cruise

Roger Federer rallied from down 5-2 in the third to beat Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (15-13), 6-7 (1-7), 7-6 (9-7) while Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic easily extended their win streaks to reach the round of 16 at the Madrid Open. Federer, No. 3 in the world, saved a match point in winning in 2 hours, 56 minutes and faces Xavier Malisse. Nadal, ranked No. 1, beat Marcos Baghdatis 6-1, 6-3 for his 35th consecutive win on clay and faces Juan Martin del Potro. Djokovic, ranked No. 2, moved to 28-0 this year by beating Kevin Anderson 6-3, 6-4 and faces Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Clijsters out: Kim Clijsters, out since hurting her ankle while dancing at a wedding last month, withdrew from next week's Italian Open, a warmup for the French Open, which begins May 22.

Et cetera

Hockey: The Blues' Patrik Berg­lund scored twice to help Sweden end the first round of the world championships with a 6-2 win over the United States in Slovakia. The United States finished second in its group to qualify for the next round-robin stage, which starts Friday against Canada.

Figure skating: U.S. pairs champs Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin split a week after finishing sixth at the world championships. No reason was given. Yankowskas said she will look for a new partner while Coughlin said only he wants to stay involved in skating.

Politics: New Jersey's supreme court didn't halt the printing of Democratic primary ballots as ex-track star Carl Lewis was in court trying to become eligible for the state senate race June 7. He was taken off because he has not been a state resident for four years.

Times wires

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/sports/sports-in-brief/1167843

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