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Russian Nikolay Davydenko outslugged Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro 6-3 6-2 in a winner-takes-all battle for a place in the semi-final of the Masters Cup on Thursday.

The 27-year-old world number five joined Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray in the last four, reaching the knockout stage for the second time in four appearances at the season finale for the top eight players in the world.

Defending champion Roger Federer must beat Briton Murray on Friday to claim the final place in the last four, which will otherwise go to Frenchman Gilles Simon.

Del Potro, who now heads home for next week’s Davis Cup final against Spain, held his own through some long early rallies but once he lost the first set, the long season and a toe injury looked to have caught up with him and he folded.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga earlier restored some pride by coming back from a set down to beat world number three Djokovic 1-6 7-5 6-1 in a dead rubber match in the same Gold Group.

The Frenchman had lost his first two matches at the $4.45 million tournament and looked on his way to a third defeat when Djokovic, who had already won the Gold Group, took the first set in 25 minutes.

Tsonga, who had beaten Djokovic to win his first title in Bangkok in September and again on his way to winning the Paris Masters, broke the 21-year-old Serbian to even the match up before prevailing in a third set as one-sided as the first.

The 23-year-old Tsonga, who lost to Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open, said he was nevertheless delighted with a season when he broke into the world top 10 despite playing just 15 tournaments and had knee surgery in May.

“For me it’s just very good to have years like this,” he said. “With all my problems I played very well. I hope to play better next year. I’m very happy with this year.”

Britain’s Andy Murray moved into the Masters Cup semi-finals on Wednesday while Roger Federer kept his title defence alive against Radek Stepanek, a late replacement for the injured Andy Roddick.

Murray overcame some dogged resistance from Gilles Simon to reach the last four 6-4, 6-2, while Federer was also made to work for his 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 win.

Roddick was a last-minute withdrawal after rolling his right ankle, joining world number one Rafael Nadal (tendinitis) on the sidelines and renewing concerns about the rigorous tennis schedule.

Federer is also carrying a back injury which forced him out of the Paris Masters, and his cautious return to play ended in a shock defeat to Simon in his opening match.

He started strongly as Stepanek double-faulted to be broken in the first game. But the Czech hit back before Federer took control of the tie-break, rounding it off with an unreachable forehand drop.

Federer looked to have it won when he broke for 5-3 but Stepanek swiped an unstoppable backhand pass on the slide to break back. However, the recovery was brief as he double-faulted for the match in the next game.

The Swiss now needs to beat Murray in his final match to qualify, while Stepanek cannot reach the last four.

Earlier Murray, who beat Simon at Hamburg and in the Madrid Masters final, quickly looked in sight of another win as he raced to a 4-0 first-set lead.

But the Scot’s charge was suddenly slowed and he was broken at 4-1 and faced more break points before serving out the set 6-4.

Murray was again in trouble early in the second but he saved three break points and then broke twice for a straightforward win.

“Although he did come back I was always ahead in the first set,” Murray said. “In the second set I dictated a lot of the points, moved him around a lot and didn’t make too many errors.”

Simon appeared to run out of energy and ideas against the world number four after his heroic victory over Federer.

“When you play these kind of players, it’s never easy because he never misses a shot, so you have to play a good point to finish the game,” Simon said.

Meanwhile Roddick dealt the tournament a second injury blow after Nadal’s withdrawal as he pulled out after turning his right ankle in training on Tuesday.

“I came out here and tried to warm up 45 minutes or so ago, and it was pretty apparent that my movement was probably 30 or 40 percent,” he said.

“Unfortunately that’s just not good enough to get it done at a tournament like this. I didn’t feel like I could go out and try to compete and win a tennis match.”

Roddick also withdrew in 2005, when Nadal, Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin also missed the tournament, angering Chinese organisers.

The eight-man season finale is played in a round-robin format with two players from each group reaching the last four. Next year it will be played in London as the ATP World Tour Final.

The selectors named an unchanged squad for the remaining two Tests against Australia. The five member committee headed by former skipper K. Srikkanth met after the fourth day’s play at the PCA Stadium to pick the team for the Delhi and Nagpur Tests.

Squad: Anil Kumble (captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, R P Singh, S Badrinath, Munaf Patel.

It’s a pen. But you can’t write with, instead it takes home whatever you wanted to copy.

The DocuPen is actually a mobile scanner that can copy an entire legal-paper sized page just in seconds and produce the output in a format your choice. With a 2MB flash memory to support the sugar-candy sized device, this Planon Systems Solutions’ scanner looks similar to some Star Wars inspired gadget.

The output isn’t objectionable, and what’s more - one can also edit a copy instantly. The DocuPens are available in both black and white colours and has chargeable batteries.

So who’s looking for one - journos or lawyers? -HTC.

Creating more and newer International venues and improving facilities at existing centres is the only way to attract crowds to Test cricket, ICC’s principal advisor and PCA president I.S. Bindra said on the third day of the second India-Australia Test match at PCA, Mohali. “At the end of the day the empty stands do affect an association.

It’s true that the associations get compensated for the large part of their money from TV rights but if the crowd starts remaining aloof it will have a affect on everything,” Bindra said. He said the limited turnout can also be attributed to the fact that in the past two years the PCA has staged 13 high-profile matches.

“We have done a through research on this topic and have decided to add two more venues of international standard in Punjab. We are in the process of building an international stadium at Bathinda and the one at Burlton Park, Jalandhar is also being revived.

We then plan to rotate the matches in these venues as we think the 1 million Mohali population cannot sustain back to back matches,” he said. Bindra denied the notion that T20 is having an adverse affect on Test cricket but said, “In fact the game has become more interesting and has attracted more people to cricket.

The TRP ratings for the current series are high which shows more people are watching the game on TV. But now our challenge is to find a way to attract the crowds to watch matches in the stadium,” he said, adding that the PCA was looking to overhaul facilities. “The association will forgo an international match in order to create a window to develop its stadia.

The projects in the pipeline at the PCA stadium are a new pavilion block at the North end and covered stands to protect spectators from sun,” said Bindra. Bindra added that the ICC is also very serious about Test cricket and plans are already under way to have a Test championship between all the 10 Test playing nations of the world.

The Cricket fraternity on Friday paid glowing tributes to Sachin Tendulkar on his historic feat of becoming the highest run getter in Test Cricket with some former players hailing him as a “genius” and others urging him to continue playing for a few more years.The master batsman, who came into the second Test at Mohali against Australia with just 15 runs short of the milestone, created history on Friday when he hit debutant pacer Peter Siddle for three runs to overtake Brian Lara’s record of 11,953 runs.

Chief national selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth congratulated Tendulkar for the feat and said the master blaster should keep going for some more time and guide the youngsters in the team.

“It is fantastic to know that an Indian is the highest run getter in the world. In the past we had Sunil Gavaskar and Tendulkar has done it again today for us…It is a great sense of pride for the Indians.

Manchester United are hoping to reap a dividend from Wayne Rooney’s goalscoring form for England as they seek to close the gap on Premier League pacesetters Chelsea and Liverpool this weekend.

Rooney’s midweek double against Belarus made it five in three internationals and the United striker has also hit the net in his last three matches for his club.

All of which augurs badly for West Brom, visitors to Old Trafford on Saturday.

Having endured a fallow spell, Rooney is delighted with the turnaround in his form in front of goal.

“I’ve worked a lot on my finishing and it’s starting to pay off on the pitch now which I’m happy about,” said the 23-year-old.

“I believe I’m going to score in any game anyway. I’m a confident person and I’m delighted they are going in at the moment. Hopefully I can keep it going.”

United kick off the weekend six points adrift of the leaders but with a game in hand over rivals who both have serious injury problems.

Liverpool are likely to be without both Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel for the visit of Wigan following injuries picked up on midweek international duty, a turn of events that has left manager Rafael Benitez fuming and keen for radical change in the way international fixtures are organised.

“Too many international games are putting the players at risk of injury,” the Spaniard said.

“Maybe the answer is for there to be a two-tier qualifying system, because there are too many games in the qualifiers for the World Cup and the European Championships which are not competitive but which still place great demands on the players.”

Liverpool’s injury woes pale into insignificance however when compared with the situation at Chelsea, who could be missing eight first team players for their trip to Middlesbrough, where they have lost on two of their last three visits.

Captain John Terry and Didier Drogba are among the walking wounded but manager Luiz Felipe Scolari is refusing to be downbeat about a situation which could force him to throw young Argentinian forward Franco Di Santo into the fray at the Riverside.

“We are trying to give him 20 minutes or 45 minutes whenever we can,” Scolari said of the 19-year-old. “He needs to understand the way we play but we have chances for players like him.”

Arsenal’s title credentials have taken a hammering already this season as a result of having suffered defeats at the hands of Hull City and Fulham before they have had to face a club from last season’s top six.

That changes on Saturday when Everton visit the Emirates and Arsene Wenger will be acutely aware that his attractive side’s margin for further error has been sharply reduced. Everton will arrive in north London buoyed by manager David Moyes having finally signed a new long-term contract and the Gunners will be weakened by the loss of French defenders William Gallas and Bacary Sagna and Nicklas Bendtner, all of whom picked up injuries while playing for their countries in midweek.

Hull, the high-flying newcomers, entertain West Ham on Sunday looking to sustain an extraordinary start to their season which has seen them beat both Arsenal and Tottenham away already.

Rock-bottom Tottenham visit Stoke City in Sunday’s other match while crisis club Newcastle entertain Manchester City on Monday evening.

THE PRIORITIES of the cricketing world are set to change. The hint of the changing order came when Sri Lanka Cricket agreed to release its players for the IPL even though it coincides with the island nation’s tour of England for a Test series.

The decision means either the tour could be postponed or cancelled or England could face a second-string Lankan team. In either case, the precedence of Test cricket would have been compromised.

This is startling for the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the member boards had decided that international cricket would take precedence over the IPL, just before it took off in April, during their executive meet in Dubai in March. The IPL honchos too tried to assuage fears, assuring the league would not disrupt international cricket.

Terms and conditions have been put in place which dissuade individuals from giving up international cricket to join the IPL. The most notable being the one that gives national boards the right to stop a player from featuring in the IPL until two years after his international retirement. But it has taken just a few months for the stand to be breached.

Interestingly, it’s not an individual but one of the member boards to violate the ‘agreement’ and the IPL, on its part, has sort of endorsed it by offering a $ 40 million deal to the Lankan board for pledging its players for the tournament over the next decade. Understandably, the ICC was less than pleased with the ‘deal’.

ICC chief David Morgan has been quoted as saying that the ‘deal’ was unacceptable. “Only last month, the ICC reaffirmed the primacy of Test cricket with the unanimous agreement of all Full Members,” said Morgan.

The IPL, however, finds nothing wrong in the deal. “It’s the internal matter of the Lankan board and we can’t comment on it,” said Niranjan Shah, vice-chairman of the IPL governing council.

But isn’t it a case of undermining the primacy of Test cricket, something that every board agreed in principle to protect? “The Lanka-England series was not part of the FTP, so the Lankan board has the right to decide what suits them and their players better,” said Shah.

Indonesian Alan Budi Kusuma and Susi Susanti won the 1992 Bracelona Olympic gold when they were engaged. They could not bag such a double after they tied the knot in 1997 as Susanti retired soon after.

Though India’s first first badminton couple of Chetan Anand and Jwala Gutta have a long way to go to reach the heights the Indonesians achieved, the Hyderabad-based couple created history when they bagged a grand double in the $50,000 Bitburger Open Grand Prix winning the men’s singles and mixed doubles titles respectively. It was also an historic occasion for the Indian contingent as this was the first time that India has won two titles in the same event of this stature.

In fact, Chetan became the first male shuttler in seven years to have won any tournament above the international challenger level since Pullela Gopichand won the 2001 All England championship. World number 30 Chetan, seeded fourth, got the better of compatriot Arvind Bhat 23-25, 24-22, 23-21 in an hour long humdinger to clinch his fourth title in the year and also earn 5000 ranking points that should catapult him eight places in the next ranking list.

Earlier, Jwala had teamed up with V Diju to win the mixed doubles crown when the unseeded Indian pair upset eight-seeded Danish combination of Joachim Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen 8-21, 21-17, 22-20 in the summit clash. However, Aditi Mutatkar failed to make it an 100 per cent result for the Indians when she wasted three match points before going down to Indonesia’s Maria Kusumastuti 22-24, 21-8, 23-21 in the women’s singles final.

Below par Chetan scrapes through Jwala normally exercises her vocal chord to the optimum when hubby Chetan takes the court. But on Sunday, the 25-year-old preferred to get out of the arena and pray as she was too nervous to watch the game.

“Chetan was not at all playing at his best and I could watch the game like that,” she told Hindustan Times over phone. Even Chetan admitted that the summit clash was more about holding once nerve than good quality badminton and said he just employed the tactic of frustrating his opponent in the closing stages of the match.

“When I went 14-19 down in the decider, I remembered the Goa nationals earlier in the year where I just played on his patience to win. I played the same way and thankfully the strategy worked once again,” said Chetan, who had reached the summit clash of the India Open Grand Prix gold event in Hyderabad in April this year.

Arvind on the other hand was a bit philosophical about his loss saying it was just not his day. “The quality of the game was not that good at the start.