HOCKEY

NHL talks go into a third day as lockout continues

The NHL and the Players’ Association met for the third straight day on Sunday to try to resolve the lockout.

The sides met for about four hours Saturday, and the agenda Sunday was said to include discussions on health and safety issues.

Core economic issues still weren’t on the agenda when the opposing groups got together again at the NHL office.

Sunday’s talks came three days after the league canceled the remaining preseason games. The regular season is scheduled to start Oct. 11.

If a deal isn’t reached soon, regular-season games will be in danger of being lost. The NHL canceled the entire 2004-05 season because of a lockout that eventually led to the collective bargaining agreement that expired this month.

TENNIS

THAILAND OPEN: Second-seeded Richard Gasquet won his first tournament of the year when he beat Gilles Simon 6-2, 6-1 in an all-French final at Bangkok.

The 14th-ranked Gasquet routed the 2009 champion in 68 minutes for his seventh career victory.

Playing with a right knee injury, Simon was up an early break in each set, but Gasquet dominated the rest of the match with more accurate groundstrokes.

MALAYSIAN OPEN: Juan Monaco of Argentina beat Julien Benneteau of France 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 to win at Kuala Lumpur for his fourth title this season.

The 11th-ranked Monaco needed just over three hours to edge out Benneteau in the tournament’s longest match this year, for his first hard-court title.

It was the first meeting between Monaco, a clay-court specialist, and the 34th-ranked Benneteau, who beat top-seeded David Ferrer of Spain in the semifinals.

SOCCER

EUROPE: Hoffenheim of the German league says midfielder Boris Vukcevic, 22, remains in critical but stable condition after a traffic accident in which he collided head on with a truck.

Vukcevic remains in an induced coma in a Heidelberg hospital. He suffered life-threatening head injuries in the collision, and was airlifted to the hospital and induced into a coma after an operation.

BASKETBALL

WNBA: Tamika Catchings had 25 points and 13 rebounds, Briann January added 24 points and the Indiana Fever beat the Dream at Atlanta 103-88 to even the Eastern Conference semifinals at 1-1.

FOOTBALL

CANCER DIAGNOSED: Former New England Patriots and University of Oklahoma football coach Chuck Fairbanks is battling brain cancer and said he’s about to undergo treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix.

Fairbanks was named OU head coach in 1967 and led the Sooners to a 52-15-1 record and three Big Eight titles in six seasons.

He left OU after the 1972 season to become head coach of the NFL’s New England Patriots.

– From news service reports

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