Murray will be No. 2 after reaching final

Andy Murray defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Juan Martin del Potro ousted Andy Roddick in the semifinals of the Rogers Cup on Saturday at Montreal.

With his win, Murray will vault past Rafael Nadal into a career-high second in the ATP rankings behind No. 1 Roger Federer when the next rankings are released Monday. Nadal, returning from a knee injury, lost in the quarterfinals Friday night.

Murray ousted the seventh-seeded Tsonga, 6-4, 7-6 (8).

Del Potro beat Roddick, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5. He also defeated the fifth-seeded American in a third-set tiebreaker in the final in Washington last Sunday.

Dinara Safina needed only 56 minutes to eliminate Flavia Pennetta, 6-2, 6-0, and will face Jelena Jankovic for the championship of the $2-million Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open at Mason, Ohio.

Jankovic reached the final with a ragged 7-6, (2), 0-6, 7-6 (6) win over Elena Dementieva that took 2 hours 46 minutes.

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MOTOR RACING

Keselowski wins Nationwide race

Brad Keselowski swooped past Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch to take the lead in the final turn, then held on to win the Nationwide Series race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.

Keselowski took two tires on his final pit stop, then took advantage of a furious battle for the lead between Vickers and Busch on the last lap. Vickers finished second and Busch third, and they exchanged some heated words on pit road afterward.

Luis Martinez Jr. of Long Beach and Nick Joanides of Woodland Hills each scored victories in the NASCAR ACDelco Super Late Model twin 40-lap feature races at Toyota Speedway in Irwindale. In the second race, Joanides took the lead from David Beat on Lap 29 to win his 11th race of the season and maintain his division championship points lead.

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GYMNASTICS

Sloan edges Hong to win title

Bridget Sloan won the women’s national gymnastics championship at Dallas, overcoming an early deficit to outscore Ivana Hong, 117.55-117.25, to capture her first title.

Sloan, a member of last year’s Olympic team, was trailing by 0.85 of a point coming into the finals but slowly caught up and overtook Hong after the floor exercise, the third of four routines.

Rebecca Bross, leader after the first round, finished third.

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MMA

Santos hands Carano first loss

Cris “Cyborg” Santos scored a technical knockout of Gina Carano at the end of the first round of their mixed-martial arts bout in front of 13,524 at HP Pavilion in San Jose.

Santos, of Brazil, ended the match after she was able to get on top of Carano and landed about 12 consecutive blows before referee Josh Rosenthal stepped in and waved his arms to signal the fight was over at the 4-minute 59-second mark of the scheduled five-minute round.

Santos (8-1), who was a slight favorite, became the first Strikeforce female 145-pound champion. Carano, of Las Vegas, suffered her first loss and fell to 7-1.

The matchup was the first women’s main event bout on a major MMA card.

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ETC.

Phelps set to resume training

Swimmer Michael Phelps is still nursing a sore ankle from the car accident he was in Thursday, but the Olympic gold medalist intends to resume training Monday.

In a message on his official Facebook site, Phelps said he was “fine,” and expressed concern for the woman involved in the car crash.

Three-time Olympian Troy Dumais captured his 29th national title, winning the senior men’s three-meter springboard at the U.S. Summer National Diving Championships at the Morcom Aquatic Center in Tallahassee, Fla.

U.S. national team defender Steve Cherundolo has been placed in quarantine by his German team, Hannover, because of Landon Donovan’s positive test for the H1N1 virus. Cherundolo is isolated from Hannover teammates and is expected to remain under observation until next week though the team said it was only “a precautionary measure.”