IN BRIEF

BASKETBALL

T-Wolves' bad break: Love fractures left hand

Minnesota forward Kevin Love fractured a bone in his left hand during the Timberwolves' 94-90 preseason road loss to the Chicago Bulls on Friday and probably will miss about six weeks.

Love banged his hand against teammate Oleksiy Pecherov's elbow trying to go for a rebound on a missed free throw late in the third quarter and fractured the fourth metacarpal. The injury is to his nonshooting hand, and he hopes to return at the end of November or early December.

Love led all rookies and ranked ninth in the NBA in rebounding at 9.1 per game last season.

Also: A ruling by a New Jersey judge set the stage for a second manslaughter trial for former NBA star Jayson Williams, whose lawyers argued that a racial slur and other misconduct by the prosecutor's office should result in dismissal.

State Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman upheld Williams' convictions for covering up the shooting death of a hired driver and rejected attempts to dismiss a retrial early next year on the manslaughter charge.

Defense attorneys' latest attempts to clear Williams centered on a racial slur an investigator in the Hunterdon County Prosecutor's Office used to describe the basketball star, who is black. The comment came in the months after the 2002 shooting of Costas "Gus" Christofi at Williams' central New Jersey estate.

The Portland Trail Blazers signed second-round draft pick Patrick Mills and exercised options on center Greg Oden, forwards Nicolas Batum and Rudy Fernandez and guard Jerryd Bayless.

Terms of the deal with Mills, a guard from Australia who played at Saint Mary's, were not released.

The Blazers exercised the team's fourth-year option on Oden and their three-year option on the others.

TENNIS

Nadal advances when Ljubicic suffers injury

Rafael Nadal advanced to the semifinals at the Shanghai Masters, benefiting from yet another retirement when Ivan Ljubicic became the eighth player to quit while playing in the tournament this week.

Nadal and Ljubicic split the first two sets, with the top-seeded Spaniard losing the first. The match ended 3-6, 6-3 when Ljubicic retired with a left hip injury.

In today's semifinals, Nadal will face Feliciano Lopez, who eliminated ninth-seeded Robin Soderling, 7-6 (4), 6-3.

Second-seeded Novak Djokovic rebounded to beat eighth-seeded Gilles Simon, 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. He will play Nikolay Davydenko, who defeated 13th-seeded Radek Stepanek 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, in today's other semifinal.

Also: Defending champion Caroline Wozniacki defeated Aleksandra Wozniak 6-2, 6-7 (1), 6-2 to advance to the semifinals of the Japan Women's Open in Osaka.

The U.S. Open finalist will face third-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia in today's semifinals.

India's Sania Mirza and fourth-seeded Italian Francesca Schiavone will meet in the other semifinal.

Top-seeded Flavia Pennetta came a step closer to winning her first indoor title by beating Ioana Raluca Olaru of Romania 7-5, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the Generali Ladies in Linz, Austria.

The 11th-seeded Italian will face third-seeded Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium in today's semifinals. Second-seeded Agnieskza Radwanska of Poland and unseeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic also reached the semifinals.

UNLV ATHLETICS

Men's soccer team falls to Cal State Bakersfield

The UNLV men's soccer team fell behind 1-0 to Cal State Bakersfield in the first minute and never recovered in a 3-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation loss at Peter Johann Memorial Field.

Andrew Friel had the goal for the Rebels (6-3-2 overall, 0-1-1 MPSF).

Also: Kristina Nedeltcheva won three times to advance to the semifinals of singles and doubles play at the ITA Mountain Region Championships at the Darling Tennis Center.

Nedeltcheva teamed with Jana Albers to win twice in doubles.

Ellis Keenan shot 1-over-par 72 as the UNLV women's golf team stood in 11th place after the first round of the 15-team Stanford Intercollegiate Championship in Palo Alto, Calif.

The Rebels, at 10-over 294, trailed first-round leader Arizona State by 21 strokes.

MISCELLANEOUS

Melvin, Acta interview for Astros' opening

Former Arizona Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin and former Washington Nationals manager Manny Acta met with the Houston Astros about their field opening, the fifth and sixth of 10 candidates the team is to interview.

The Astros fired Cecil Cooper on Sept. 21 and finished 74-88, their second losing record in three years.

Also: Washington Nationals high-priced prospect Stephen Strasburg reached 99 mph with his first pitch and worked 3 1/3 scoreless innings in his Arizona Fall League debut in Phoenix.

Strasburg, who signed a record $15.1 million, four-year contract with the Nationals as the first player taken in the June draft, gave up two singles and a walk while striking out two for the Phoenix Desert Dogs.

Etched held off Kiss the Kid by a neck to win the $300,000 Meadowlands Cup at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J., in stakes-record time.

Etched ran the 1 1-8 miles on the sloppy, sealed track in 1:45,93, shading the stakes mark of 1:46 set by K.J.'s Appeal in 1998.

Forward Marian Hossa, who signed a 12-year, $62.8 million contract with the Chicago Blackhawks during the offseason, skated for the first time since undergoing shoulder surgery in July.

Hossa had 40 goals last season for the Detroit Red Wings before joining Chicago as a free agent.

Detroit Red Wings forward Johan Franzen underwent successful surgery to repair a ligament in his left knee.

The team said Franzen is expected to miss at least four months.