IN BRIEF

BASEBALL

51s pound Salt Lake for first win of season

Tony Abreu drove in three runs and Las Vegas pounded out 18 hits to top host Salt Lake, 9-4, on Sunday at Franklin Covey Field.

Larry Bigbie went 4-for-5 and Delwyn Young homered as the 51s (1-3) earned their first win of the season. Leadoff man Abreu finished 2-for-5 with a triple, while Sergio Garcia and Choo Freeman each collected three hits in the victory.

Las Vegas broke open the game in the top of the sixth inning when Abreu tripled to center to score Kelly Stinnett and Tomas Perez. Bigbie followed with an RBI single up the middle to score Abreu.

BOXING

Calzaghe-Kessler boutunlikely to come off

A super middleweight fight to unify Joe Calzaghe’s WBO and Mikkel Kessler’s WBC and WBA belts looks further off than ever.

After Calzaghe stopped Peter Manfredo, star of "The Contender" reality TV show, to retain his title for the 20th time, promoter Frank Warren said Kessler’s camp wouldn’t meet the proposed July date.

Warren also claimed that Kessler, who said he wanted to fight Calzaghe after beating Miguel Andrade on March 24 to improve to 39-0, wanted equal billing and parity on financial terms in any future bout.

"I’ve got it in writing from (promoter) Mogens Palle that Kessler won’t be ready by July and can we do it later in the year," Warren said. "And he called out Joe after his last fight, he said: ‘I want Joe Calzaghe next.’ What are you going to do? You can’t force him to fight."

MISCELLANEOUS

Alonso races to winin Malaysian Grand Prix

World champion Fernando Alonso won the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang, Malaysia, to hand new team McLaren-Mercedes its first Formula One win since 2005.

Rookie Lewis Hamilton, F1’s first black driver, added to McLaren’s resurgence by finishing second ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who won the season-opening Australian GP last month.

Pole-sitter Felipe Massa of Ferrari was overtaken by Alonso and Hamilton on the first lap and never challenged from then on, finishing fifth.

Also: Andy Roddick leaned back in his chair, drink in hand, and yelled, "Let’s go, Bob!"

With the United States assured a spot in the Davis Cup semifinals, Roddick rested his sore left hamstring on a stress-free Sunday in Winston-Salem, N.C. But he remained a cheerleader for a competition he said he desperately wants to win.

The Americans entered the day with a 3-0 lead over Spain in the best-of-5 event, making reverse singles meaningless. Tommy Robredo beat Roddick’s replacement, doubles specialist Bob Bryan, 6-4, 6-4. James Blake then beat Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 7-6 (3) for a 4-1 U.S. victory.

Sweden, the Americans’ next opponent in Davis Cup, closed out a 4-1 win over Argentina in Goteborg, Sweden.

Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden beat Sebastian Prieto 6-1, 6-2, and Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro defeated Robert Lindstedt, 7-6 (7), 6-4.

Russia advanced to the other Davis Cup semifinal against Germany by edging France 3-2 in a quarterfinal in Moscow.

The defending champions got the decisive victory from Marat Safin, who beat Paul-Henri Mathieu, 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2. Sebastien Grosjean had tied it at 2 for France by topping Igor Andreev 7-5, 4-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the first match.

Germany, guaranteed of advancing to the Davis Cup semis, lost two singles matches but still defeated Belgium 3-2 in Ostend, Belgium. Christophe Rochus beat Michael Kohlmann 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, and Dick Norman defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber, 6-2, 6-3.

Tatiana Golovin beat Nadia Petrova 6-2, 6-1 for her first WTA Tour singles title at the Bausch & Lomb Championships in Amelia Island, Fla.

Golovin was appearing in her fourth title match.

The top-seeded Petrova made 27 unforced errors in the final.

Krissy Wendell and Molly Engstrom each had a goal and an assist to help the United States advance to the title game in the women’s world hockey championships with a 4-0 victory over Finland in Winnipeg , Manitoba.

Canada, a 5-4 shootout winner over the United States on Saturday in the first game of the three-team group winners round robin, will play Finland tonight, with Canada needing a win or overtime loss to advance to advance to the championship game.

John Pelphrey will leave South Alabama to take over the Arkansas men’s basketball program.