MILAN-- AC Milan warmed up for next week's Champions League clash against Manchester United with a patchy 3-2 home win over Udinese in Serie A on Friday.
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, starting in place of the injured Marco Borriello, headed the opener on seven minutes from a Ronaldinho cross and the Dutch striker also made it 3-1 in the second half after poor Udinese defending.
Substitute Alexandre Pato netted Milan's second on his return from a thigh injury when he ran on to a long ball and appeared to have made a mess of rounding the goalkeeper before slotting home six minutes before the break.
Udinese, who had beaten Milan in the league and cup already this term, pulled one back on the stroke of halftime when shaky keeper Dida failed to keep out a header from Antonio Floro Flores.
Antonio Di Natale beat the offside trap to make it 3-2 four minutes from the end and give Milan some late jitters.
Milan moved back up to second spot, eight points behind leaders Inter Milan, but AS Roma can leapfrog Leonardo's side with a win over Palermo on Saturday.
Former United midfielder David Beckham started on the bench for the second straight match and will now be fretting over his place for Tuesday's Champions League last-16 first leg at home.
The Rossoneri, who have played the same number of games as Roma, lost new winger Mancini to a first-half injury and coach Leonardo opted to bring on Brazilian forward Pato for his first appearance this year rather than turn to Beckham.
The England player came on for the impressive Ronaldinho with 15 minutes left but played one dreadful pass which almost led to another goal for Di Natale.
Milan's Alessandro Nesta returned from injury but fellow centre back Thiago Silva was forced off with a knock.
United boss Alex Ferguson was watching in the San Siro stands and will not have been quaking in his boots despite Milan ending a four-match winless run.
STOCKHOLM-- Finland's Mikko Hirvonen took charge of the season-opening Sweden Rally on Friday while debutant Kimi Raikkonen lost 25 minutes after becoming stuck in a snow bank.
Ford's Hirvonen, who lost the title to six-times champion Sebastien Loeb by a point last season, won three stages in the day after his French rival had seized the first two on the ice and snow covered roads around Karlstad.
"It's been good and since the last stage this morning we've found a good rhythm," Hirvonen told www.wrc.com. "We're not too far ahead yet though so we have to try and keep this up."
Hirvonen held a 6.2-second advantage over Loeb's Citroen ahead of Saturday's penultimate day, with Dani Sordo third after winning Thursday's super-special first stage. Raikkonen, making his world rally championship debut after switching from Formula One, was more than 30 minutes behind the leader following an accident near the end of stage six.
The Finn drove his Citroen Junior team C4 into a heavy snow drift and freed himself almost half an hour later.
PARIS-- American Melanie Oudin thrashed experienced Swiss Patty Schnyder 6-1 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals at the Paris Open on Thursday.
The teenager, who had dropped just three games in her first round annihilation of Romania's Sorana Cirstea, breezed past her 31-year-old opponent in just over an hour.
Oudin's return of serve was superb as she stormed through the first set losing just one game. The world number 53 was almost as impressive taking the second set.
The 18-year-old, who reached the last eight at the U.S. Open, now faces Hungary's Agnes Szavay who beat Croatian Petra Martic 6-2 6-4.
Oudin's win sets up the possibility of a semi-final meeting with top seed and world number seven Elena Dementieva.
The Russian must first get past Germany's Andrea Petkovic who dashed French hopes of a quarter-finalist when she battled past fifth seed Aravane Rezai 6-3 3-6 6-3.
On the other side of the draw, Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic booked her place in the last eight with a 7-5 6-2 win over fourth seed Francesca Schiavone.
Safarova broke the Italian at 5-5 in the first and then held to take the set. The Czech broke Schiavone immediately in the second set before going on to triumph 7-5 6-2.
"I wanted to push her back into the trenches," said Safarova. "I really had to give 100 percent to win this match. It was pretty tight and difficult, so I'm glad to have made it through."
Her next opponent will be sixth seed Shahar Peer of Israel who cruised through with a 6-4 6-3 win over Croatia's Karolina Sprem.
In Friday's other quarter-final, number two seed Flavia Pennetta will meet fellow Italian Tathiana Garbin.
MADRID-- Atletico Madrid set up a King's Cup final against Sevilla when they went through 6-3 on aggregate despite conceding two late goals to lose 3-2 at Racing Santander in their semi-final second leg on Thursday.
Atletico thrashed Racing 4-0 at the Calderon in last week's first leg but were rocked in only the second minute in Santander when defender Juan Valera headed into his own net from a corner.
Valera made amends six minutes later when he burst into the penalty area and pressured Jose Moraton into diverting a Jose Antonio Reyes freekick past goalkeeper Mario Fernandez.
Atletico midfielder Jurado snuffed out any hopes of an unlikely Racing comeback shortly after halftime when he exchanged passes with Sergio Aguero and curled the ball into the bottom corner with the outside of his right foot.
Christian Fernandez was shown a straight red card with just over 20 minutes left after catching Atletico substitute Ibrahima Balde in the face with a forearm and late goals from Racing strikers Xisco and Mohamed Tchite were mere consolations.
Sevilla, the 2007 King's Cup winners, won last week's first leg at home to Getafe 2-0 and hung on to clinch a 2-1 aggregate win after losing 1-0 in Madrid on Wednesday.
ROTTERDAM-- Serbian top seed Novak Djokovic qualified for the semi-finals of the World Indoor Tournament on Thursday after his next opponent Florian Mayer withdrew injured.
Djokovic beat Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 6-4 6-2 in the second round and would have faced Mayer in the quarter-finals but the German pulled out with a hamstring injury after beating Tommy Robredo on Wednesday.
"It is never the best way to get a win like this and I feel sorry for Florian," Djokovic told reporters.
World number two Djokovic dominated on serve against Chiudinelli but needed more than a dozen break chances to see off the Swiss in a match lasting 90 minutes.
"I played conveniently and dominantly from the start on my own service game, and had many opportunities on his, however, I was less successful. I used the ones I needed." he added.
Russian second seed Nikolay Davydenko displayed a solid baseline game to overcome Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-3 6-2.
"Everything was good today about my performance, though I still don't feel comfortable on this surface and with the balls we are playing with," Davydenko told reporters.
Russian sixth seed Mikhail Youzhny beat Turkish qualifier Marsel Ilhan 6-4 6-4 to set up a quarter-final with Gael Monfils.
The Frenchman, seeded four, beat Dutch wildcard Thiemo de Bakker 6-3 6-2.
