Brazil's Gilberto (l) and Bolivia's Doyle Vaca fight for the ball during their World Cup 2006 qualifying soccer match at the Hernando Siles Stadium in La Paz, Bolivia, Sunday. (Reuters Photo)

LA PAZ, Oct. 10--Brazil defied high altitude and rough play from Bolivia to earn a 1-1 draw in their World Cup qualifier on Sunday.
World champions Brazil, who had already qualified for next year’s finals in Germany, have 31 points from 17 games, level with Argentina who play Peru in Buenos Aires later on Sunday, Reuters reported.
Bolivia, with no chance of qualifying, stayed bottom of the 10-nation South American group with 14 points.
Juninho Pernambucano put Brazil ahead with a trademark free kick before substitute Jose Castillo replied for Bolivia after 50 minutes of a match played at 3,600 meters above sea level.
The hosts were allowed to get away with several nasty challenges in the second half thanks to lenient refereeing by Uruguayan Jorge Larrionda.
Bolivia peppered the Brazil goal with long-range shots while the visitors tried to slow the game down.
Brazil went ahead in the 25th minute when Juninho’s dipping 30-metre shot hit the underside of the bar and bounced into the net off goalkeeper Carlos Arias.
Roque Junior nearly added a second when he headed wide following a corner.
At the other end Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar made two outstanding saves in less than a minute, blocking a header from Miguel Hoyos and parrying a powerful Julio Baldivieso drive.
Joaquin Botero wasted another chance when he broke down the right and fired across the face of the goal.
Bolivia equalized five minutes after the break when Daner Pachi’s long ball forward was headed down by Botero into the path of Castillo, who rifled home from 12 meters.
Bolivia then appeared to be given a license to kick by referee Larrionda.
Midfielder Gonzalo Galindo was allowed to stay on the field when he blatantly kicked Cicinho from behind after the ball had gone.
Carmelo Angulo scythed down Renato, then Galindo pushed over Robinho, shouted at the referee and still escaped a booking.
Earlier, Sergio Jauregui was also let off for a cynical tackle from behind on Robinho.
Brazil finished the game on the attack and were let down by unusually poor shooting.

SYDNEY, Australia, Oct. 10--South Africa’s Graeme Smith has dismissed media suggestions the Rest of the World team were not trying hard enough in their 3-0 series loss to Australia.
The World XI were thrashed in each of the one-day internationals against Australia in Melbourne in an ominous build up to this week’s six-day super test in Sydney.
“I look at it differently. You can’t just build a team overnight,“ said Smith, who did not play in the one-dayers but will captain the test side, Reuters said.
“There’s always a lot of questions about players’ commitment in these sorts of series and I think it is important that we can turn that around in this test match.“
Smith, the South African skipper, said he had no doubts his side could win the test match but the key was getting his players to perform.
“If we can get things right we have the players to go and do it,“ he said.
“I think when you have so many world class players it’s important that everyone knows their roles.
“Jacques Kallis plays differently from Brian Lara and Rahul Dravid plays differently from (Virender) Sehwag so it’s important that we balance that and get the right structure.
“It would be stupid of me not to use the players around me.
Communication is an important part of my captaincy so I will communicate with all the players.
“There are other players who are captains and it’s important for me to use them. But at the end of the day, I’m leading the team and it’s my job to round up all the information to make the best decision for the team.“
Australia have not lost a test series at home since 1992-93 and Smith said they were a different proposition on their home turf to the side that recently lost the Ashes in England.
“You’re in Australia and you’ve got different balls and different conditions...so these are all different things you have to deal with you when you come here. It’s very difficult to win here.“

Tiger Woods holds the Gene Sarazen Trophy after winning the WGC American Express Championship at Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco, California, Sunday. (AFP Photo)

SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct. 10--Tiger Woods downed fellow American John Daly at the second playoff hole to win the 7.5 million-dollar World Golf Championship American Express Championship.
Daly had a chance to force a third playoff hole, but his short par putt at 16 lipped out. Both had parred the first playoff hole, the difficult par-four 18th.
Daly’s miss from about two feet handed Woods his 10th victory in 19 starts in the elite WGC series, but the world No. 1 admitted he would have preferred to win another way, AFP said.
“JD played beautifully,“ Woods said. “The last thing you want to see. You don’t want to win a tournament like that.“
The two had finished regulation tied at 10-under 270, Woods with a closing 67 and Daly 69.
They were two shots ahead of a trio that shared third place: Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie, Spain’s Sergio Garcia and Sweden’s Henrik Stenson.
Montgomerie, a seven-time European Order of Merit winner who was seeking his first official win on US soil, had led after each of the first two rounds. He closed with a 70, while Garcia shot 69 and Stenson 68 to join him on 272.
It was another three shots back to Britons David Howell and Graeme McDowell, Fiji’s Vijay Singh and American David Toms, who all finished on 275 on the Harding Park golf course.

FILDERSTADT, Germany, Oct. 10--Lindsay Davenport beat Amelie Mauresmo 6-2 6-4 in the Filderstadt Grand Prix final on Sunday to claim the 50th singles title of her career.
The top-seeded Davenport has won five tournaments this year, following victories in Dubai, Amelia Island, New Haven and Bali.
She also finished runner-up at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, Tokyo indoor tournament and Indian Wells, Reuters said.
“I was really excited to get 50 titles. It means a lot to me,“ the American, who goes home to California before returning next weekend to play in Zurich, told reporters.
“It’s been a really great week. I felt I played really well at certain times and been able to win some good matches.“ Davenport was barely troubled in the opening set, giving up just four points in five games after Mauresmo, the third-seeded Frenchwoman, had held for 1-0.
“Whenever you’re out there playing a final, the best start you can get off to, it only helps you,“ Davenport said. “I was able to get up that first break at 2-1 and then I played really, really well for a stretch of games.“
“I thought I was really in control and that’s what I wanted to be,“ Davenport said. “I felt like I was playing really well and dictating the points, and even when I lost a few games I really felt I made some errors but was hitting the ball well.
Mauresmo was disappointed by her serving and felt it had allow Davenport to dictate.
“I started with not putting enough first serves in and that gave her some opportunities on the second serve to step in and really play hard. I’m not very happy about that,“ Mauresmo said.
“She can be very difficult to play, especially when she serves the way she did today. Except for that game in the middle of the second set when she gave me a little bit more opportunity to be able to break her, it was a pretty impressive way for her to play today.“
The tournament, which has been held in Filderstadt since 1978, moves to Stuttgart next year.

FRANKFURT, Germany, Oct. 10--Germany will be without captain Michael Ballack again on Wednesday when they play China in a friendly international in Hamburg.
Ballack missed Saturday’s 2-1 defeat by Turkey in Istanbul after coming down with flu and his recovery has been slower than expected.
According to Reuters, Coach Juergen Klinsmann has further injury worries after midfielder Bernd Schneider and defenders Marcell Jansen and Lukas Sinkiewicz all missed training in Istanbul on Sunday.
Klinsmann said he would accept criticism after the side’s latest away defeat but he believes the experience will be character building for his young squad with next year’s World Cup in mind.
“The criticism that’s coming is absolutely in order,“ the coach said.
“But we’ve always said that the process of building for the World Cup will bring highs and lows. Young players need the setbacks as well in order to grow.“
Striker Miroslav Klose, fit again after his bout of flu, is due to meet up with the squad when they fly back into Hamburg late on Sunday.
As hosts, Germany qualify automatically for the World Cup. That means they have only a diet of friendlies to prepare for the tournament.
“We’ve seen that we have a great deal of work still to do,“ Klinsmann added.

PARIS, Oct. 10--A former doctor with Lance Armstrong’s cycling team has issued a statement to retract earlier comments he made suggesting members of the American outfit used the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin).
Prentice Steffen, a 44-year-old sports medicine specialist, said he was sacked by US Postal in 1996, before Armstrong’s arrival, when he refused to administer doping products to certain riders, AFP reported.
Armstrong, the now-retired seven-time Tour de France winner, has been fighting off allegations of doping since L’Equipe newspaper published the results of retroactive doping tests from the 1999 Tour de France.
The report said the tests, carried out only in 2004 because a test for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) did not then exist, showed Armstrong had tested positive six times during that year’s race--which Armstrong has vehemently denied.
Last week, however, the International Cycling Union (UCI) was forced to finally act and appointed an independent investigator to look into the affair which has placed further question marks over Armstrong’s integrity.
Steffen first aired his fears in 2001 when he told The Sunday Times newspaper that Tyler Hamilton and Marty Jemison--former members of US Postal--had approached him asking for help in improving their performances.
Hamilton, who since moved to the Swiss Phonak team, is currently awaiting a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on his ban for blood doping following positive tests at last year’s Tour of Spain.
Steffen said in an interview with L’Equipe last Friday that if Armstrong or Hamilton escape punishment then he would end his 26-year links with the sport.
Now Steffen has resigned from his post and issued an apology.
“First, I would like to sincerely apologize for the statements that were recently attributed to me in L’Equipe. I am very sorry about personal comments I made about Lance Armstrong and other athletes.
“It was inappropriate for me to suggest that ’the bad guys, like Armstrong, dope, and the good guys, like Hamilton, dope too’.
“I do not know Lance Armstrong personally and have I never witnessed him taking banned substances. I based my assumptions about Mr. Armstrong on rumors I had heard, instead of on anything remotely factual and I want to issue this public retraction of comments.“

T-Mobile Team's Erik Zabel, of Germany (center in red) rides to win the 253.5 km Paris-Tours cycling race in Tours, western France, Sunday. (Reuters Photo)

TOURS, France,
Oct. 10--German sprint king Erik Zabel sensationally brought the curtain down on his career with the T-Mobile team by claiming a record-equaling third victory in the Paris-Tours one-day classic, AFP said.
Zabel, riding his last race for the German outfit after 13 stellar seasons, dominated a rare bunch sprint in the race to beat Italian Daniele Bennati of Lampre by half a wheel.
Australia’s Allan Davis, of Liberty-Seguros, finished third with Australian champion Robbie McEwen, of Davitamon, finishing fourth.
Zabel, the winner here in 1994 and 2003, produced a powerful burst in the final meters of the 253.5km race to deny Bennati, who had pulled a bike length ahead of Davis as they sped for the finish line.
Moments earlier, a 50-strong peloton had swallowed up early escapees Philippe Gilbert and Stijn Devolder of Belgium only 150 meters from the finish line.
Gilbert, who did most of the work in keeping the peloton at bay, was raging as his bid for victory on the 2400-meter long Avenue de Grammont came to an end.
“Devolder refused to take any relays in the final kilometer. I couldn’t believe it! All he had to do was do one and we wouldn’t have been caught,“ raged the Francaise des Jeux rider.
Zabel was positively beaming as he claimed a rare hat-trick of victories on a race which before Sunday had finished in a bunch sprint only once since 1997.
The 35-year-old former East German is set to move to the Italian-German Milram team at the end of the season, where he will join up with fellow sprinter Alessandro Petacchi of Italy, who is leaving the Fassa Bortolo team.
“It’s a dream come true,“ said Zabel. “I wanted to say farewell to T-Mobile by winning here and I’m delighted I could.
“The sprint was long and difficult, Bennati kept me on my toes all the way to the finish.“
Gilbert and Devolder had boosted their chances of victory after pulling away from a trio of riders--Dutchman Joost Posthuma, Spaniard Ivan Gutierrez and Frenchman Stephane Berges--who had enjoyed a long breakaway together.
The two-man attack went on the Crochu climb, around 27 kilometers from the finish line, but despite building a minute lead on the chasing peloton Gilbert and Devolder failed to make it count.