Sports briefs for October 16, 2003

Thursday, Oct. 16, 2003 | 11:38 a.m.

Chad Campbell and Vijay Singh won easily today to reach the World Match Play Championship quarterfinals at Virginia Water, England.

Singh beat Alex Cejka 8 and 7, while Campbell defeated Fredrik Jacobson 6 and 5.

Thomas Bjorn and Tim Clark also won 36-hole matches. Clark got past Stephen Leaney 3 and 2, and Bjorn beat Len Mattiace 4 and 3.

Four seeded players had first-round byes and will play Friday in the quarterfinals: defending champion Ernie Els, going for a record-tying fifth title, vs. Clark; PGA champion Shaun Micheel vs. Singh; British Open champion Ben Curtis vs. Campbell; and Masters champion Mike Weir vs. Bjorn.

Singh, up by six holes after the first 18, was nine holes ahead after making a 33-foot birdie putt at the 24th.

Campbell, runner-up at PGA Championship, was five ahead of Jacobson going into the second 18. It only took five more holes for him to be 9 up.

Roddick's streak ends

Andy Roddick's 20-match winning streak ended today, 7-6 (3), 6-2, to unseeded Nicolas Massu in the third round of the Madrid Masters. It was Roddick's first first loss since Tim Henman beat him in August.

Boxing champion dies

Laszlo Papp, 77, the first boxer to win three Olympic gold medals, died today in Budapest after a long illness.

Wolf Pack picked in WAC

The Nevada-Reno men's team was picked as the favorite to win the WAC championship in a poll of writers and broadcasters who cover the league. UNR junior guard Kirk Snyder was named preseason first-team all-WAC.

Air Force AD will retire

Air Force Academy athletic director Col. Randy Spetman will retire at the end of the semester because he was ordered to report to a lower-ranking officer in a reorganization prompted by a sexual assault scandal.

Carruth must pay

Former Carolina Panther Rae Carruth and three men convicted of conspiring to kill Carruth's girlfriend were ordered to pay about $5.8 million in damages to her estate.

F-1 back in Canada

The Canadian Grand Prix was put back on the 2004 Formula One calendar, set for June 13 in Montreal.