Safin Finds Answer for Santoro

Top-seeded Marat Safin of Russia finally broke his winless streak against Fabrice Santoro, 6-2, 6-4, Wednesday to reach the third round of the $2.95-million Stuttgart Masters Series at Stuttgart, Germany.

Safin had been 0-5 against the Frenchman, with Santoro winning all three meetings this year, most recently at the Sydney Olympics.

“I didn’t look at him because when you look at him you forget to play tennis, for sure,� the 20-year-old Russian said. “This is the only player who can drive me crazy on the court--like he’s done already for two years.�

Defending champion Thomas Enqvist couldn’t end the jinx he faced. Wayne Ferreira of South Africa extended his record to 6-0 against the fifth-seeded Swede with a 6-2, 7-5 victory.

“I am very disappointed,� Enqvist said. “I came here to defend the title.�

Third-seeded Magnus Norman advanced when Marc Rosset of Switzerland withdrew from the tournament because of a fever. The Swede became the fifth player to qualify for the season-ending Masters Cup at Portugal.

He joins Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil and Safin, who had already secured berths in the eight-man field for the tournament.

Norman has advanced to the third round without hitting a ball, having had a first-round bye.

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Anna Kournikova of Russia, back in the top 10 after reaching last week’s Kremlin Cup final, defeated Silvia Farina of Italy, 6-3, 6-1, in the Sparkassen Cup at Leipzig, Germany.

Nathalie Tauziat of France, the defending champion and top-seeded player, struggled to a 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory over Tatiana Panova of Russia in another first-round match.

Tauziat, 33, said she is not retiring at the end of the year as has been widely reported.

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John McEnroe defeated Mats Wilander of Sweden, 6-1, 6-3, to win the Cathay Pacific Champions tournament at Hong Kong, his second consecutive victory on the senior tour. McEnroe, 41, won last week at Singapore. . . . The top-seeded team of Ryan Moore and Nick Rainey of USC defeated Pepperdine’s unseeded team of Chase Exon and Stefan Suter, 6-1, 6-3, in the men’s doubles final at the 44th annual SoCal Intercollegiate Championships at the Los Angeles Tennis Club.

Soccer

CONCACAF set the dates for next year’s final round of regional qualifying for the 2002 World Cup. Each of the six teams will play a total of 10 matches within these time frames: Feb. 13-14; March 24-28; April 24-25; June 16-17; June 19-20; June 30-July 4; Sept. 1-2; Sept. 4-5; Oct. 6-7, and Nov. 10-11.

Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago have qualified for the series. Costa Rica and the United States will join them if neither loses its next match Nov. 15.

Brad Friedel, the former UCLA goalkeeper who helped the United States to a fourth-place finish in the Sydney Olympics, will be traded from Liverpool to Blackburn Rovers this week if the British government extends Friedel’s work permit.

The Womens’ United Soccer Assn. (WUSA) moved its Orlando franchise to North Carolina, where the team will play at Fetzer Field on the North Carolina campus at Chapel Hill. WUSA launches its inaugural season in April.

Colorado Rapid midfielder Anders Limpar, who led Sweden to a third-place finish in the 1994 World Cup, announced his retirement at age 35 and will return to Stockholm.

Former Arsenal winger George Armstrong, who played in the English club’s 1970-71 League and Cup “double-winning� side, has died. He was 56.

Paraguay national team goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert was traded from Velez Sarsfield in Argentina to Racing Strasbourg in France for $2.1 million.

College Basketball

Brad Bridgewater, expected to be the starting center for Louisiana State, will sit out the season after suffering torn ligaments in his left knee during practice.

Coach John Brady said Bridgewater tore his anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments. The 6-foot-8 junior averaged 1.7 points and 1.2 rebounds in 26 games last season.

Texas sophomore point guard Roosevelt Brown will be sidelined four to six weeks after suffering a broken left hand in practice Monday.

He could return as early as mid-December, but the injury is another blow to the Longhorn lineup. Senior shooting guard Darren Kelly, who averaged 10 points a game last season, is academically ineligible and will not be allowed to play until after final exams in December. Texas opens the season Nov. 13 at home against Navy.

North Carolina State forward Damon Thornton, a three-year starter suspended Oct. 11 after being arrested on drunk-driving charges, will begin individual workouts with the Wolfpack coaching staff this week.

Miscellany

Skipper John Kostecki of San Francisco will lead Germany’s first America’s Cup team, the illbruck Challenge. Kostecki heads the illbruck team that will sail around the world in the 2001-2002 Volvo Ocean Race. He said it made sense to keep the team together for the 2002-03 America’s Cup at Auckland, New Zealand.

In another dispute involving the 2004 Olympics, environmentalists want the rowing and canoeing venues changed for the Athens Games. The demand by the World Wide Fund for Nature and three other groups could further hamper efforts by organizers in their work with the government.

Peggy Buchse of Germany and Evgueni Bezroutchenko of Russia were the winners of Tuesday’s 5-kilometer race, the opening event at the first FINA world open-water swimming championships, at Honolulu.

Michael Turnesa, the runner-up to Ben Hogan in the 1948 PGA Championship, died Tuesday in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. He was 93.