Germany coach Joachim Loew thinks his team will play a major role at next year's World Cup, although it would be "disrespectful" to single it out as the favorite without mentioning others such as Spain and Brazil.

Loew spoke on Friday after extending his contract past the World Cup by another two years. The German Football Federation (DFB) said the new contract runs through the 2016 European Championship in France.

Top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga overcame an awful second set to beat Daniel Brands of Germany 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 and reach the quarterfinals of the Erste Bank Open on Thursday.

No. 2 Tommy Haas and No. 3 Fabio Fognini also advanced from the second round, but No. 4 Philipp Kohlschreiber was upset 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (0) by Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium.

Just two weeks ago, Scott Dixon needed an enormous amount of help to take control of the overall IndyCar race. Helio Castroneves gave it to him with a broken gearbox during a wild doubleheader in Houston, allowing Dixon to head for California with his third series title in sight.

"It's been such an up-and-down season for us that it's kind of hard to believe we're here," said Dixon, the series champion in 2003 and 2008. "We started so poorly, but we managed to find some redemption at mid-season and got back in the hunt. And then Houston happened, and now we're here. It's been a wild ride."

Abusive price hikes of hotel rates and plane tickets during next year's World Cup will be monitored by a committee created by the Brazilian government on Thursday.

The group composed of members of different ministries was formed by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

When it was all over, when the San Antonio Spurs had let their fifth championship slip through their fingers and succumbed to the Miami Heat in a classic seven-game NBA Finals, Manu Ginobili just needed to get away. And he wasn't sure he was coming back.

He was a pending free agent, coming off one of his most challenging seasons yet and staring his 36th birthday right in the face.

Archaeologists began digging for treasure beneath a 19th century fort in northern India on Friday, after a popular Hindu holy man said a former king appeared to him in a dream and told him of the cache.

The treasure hunt began after Hindu swami Shobhan Sarkar relayed his dream to an Indian government minister who was visiting the swami's ashram last month.

One man lies on his stomach on the driveway. Blood is splattered along the garage door that smashed his head and presumably killed him. Another man lies a few feet (meters) away, run over by a truck.

The scene in a middle-class Oklahoma neighborhood made of single-story homes and well-manicured lawns seems out of a horror story because, well, it is. The two accident victims are in fact dummies, created as part of a family's vivid Halloween display to shock and frighten.

Andrea Bocelli will receive a graduate degree in Italy next week.

The 55-year-old tenor says he'll receive a master's degree in vocal performance from The Conservatory of Music, Giacomo Puccini in La Spezia, Italy, on Tuesday.

NBC-Universal employees have been told the recasting of Christian Grey in the company's film version of the erotic best-seller "Fifty Shades of Grey" will be finalized in the next few weeks.

A company-wide "town hall" on Wednesday covered a variety of subjects but "Fifty Shades" was the inevitable hot topic in the wake of last weekend's announcement that Charlie Hunnam was dropping out as Christian Grey, according to an NBC-Universal employee who attended the meeting.

An attorney for Stephen Baldwin says the actor will turn over $100,000 on Friday toward his delinquent New York tax bill.

That leaves him just $200,000 in arrears.