CHARLESTON: Top seed Elena Dementieva cruised into the semi-finals of the Family Circle Cup on Friday after her opponent Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia retired hurt. The Russian, who won Olympic gold in Beijing, will meet Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who trounced France's Virginie Razzano 6-2 6-0. Dementieva, who had lost only four games in her two previous matches, was leading 6-4 1-0 in the quarter-final when the seventh-seeded Slovakian retired with a left thigh injury.Fifth seed Wozniacki, who won last weekend's Florida claycourt title, completely outclassed 13th seed Razzano, but was banking on a sterner test in the semi-final. Another teenager in Sabine Lisicki of Germany booked a semi-final place, the 19-year-old riding out a comfortable 6-46-0 winner over Elena Vesnina of Russia. Lisicki, who upset world number five and second seed Venus Williams in the previous round, will play the winner of the quarter final bout between sixth seed Marion Bartoli of France and Hungarian Melinda Czink.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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