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Sports Briefs

■ Sailing
`Alinghi' wins third straight
Defending America's Cup champion Alinghi won its third straight fleet race on Friday to take a big lead at the top of the Louis Vuitton Act 13 standings. The Swiss yacht led from the start and easily won the fourth fleet race, a day after all racing was suspended due to poor weather. Alinghi leads the Act 13 standings with 45 points, nine more than US entry BMW Oracle Racing and Macalzone Latino of Italy, which finished 1 minute, 7 seconds behind Alinghi in second.

■ Basketball
McGrady, Yao sit out
Both Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming were inactive for the Rockets' NBA contest against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday because of back problems. McGrady's absence comes just two days after the swingman managed to play just six minutes in the first quarter of Wednesday's 110-99 loss to Golden State with a stiff lower back. Yao, who is listed as day-to-day with a sore lower back, is unaware of how he suffered his injury after scoring nine points and grabbing 11 rebounds in 30 minutes against the Warriors.

■ Auto racing
Lewis turns fastest time
Formula One rookie Lewis Hamilton turned the tables on some of the bigger names by leading yesterday's practice before qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix. Hamilton, Formula One's first black driver, went around the Sepang International Circuit in his McLaren-Mercedes in 1 minute, 34.811 seconds to edge Felipe Massa, who led both of Friday's practices in a Ferrari, clocking in at 1:34.593. Massa won the last race of last year then looked sharp over the winter. Then he had a gearbox problem for the season opener in Australia last month and had to start from the rear of the grid.

■ Golf
Club to host Woods' tourney
The members of Congressional Country Club voted to host Tiger Woods' new tournament for the next two years. Club president Stuart Long said on Friday that more than 90 percent of the members said yes to the AT&T National, scheduled this year for July 5 to July 8. About 1,300 members voted using mail-in ballots over the past three weeks. The tournament, which will be run by the Tiger Woods Foundation, replaces the International outside Denver, which was canceled earlier this year because organizers couldn't find a sponsor. Woods announced his new tournament in February before he had a venue in place, but he and US PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem openly lobbied for Congressional to host the event.

■ Soccer
Porto routs Setubal
Adriano Louzada scored twice and Jorginho Souza, Helder Postiga and Anderson Oliveira added three more in FC Porto's 5-1 rout of Setubal in the Portuguese league on Friday. Porto extended its lead in the standings to four points over Benfica, which has a game in hand. Porto has 56 and Benfica 52 with six rounds left. Setubal remained 14th in the 16-team standings with 19 points from 24 matches. Jorginho headed in the first goal in the fourth minute. Adriano put in his first 10 minutes later, and in the 20th Helder Postiga made it 3-0 from a Ricardo Quaresma pass. Adriano returned to head in the fourth in the 35th after another arched pass from Quaresma, and Anderson Oliveira sealed the result in the 76th.

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