Argentina have made a poor start to their Copa America campaign with two draws and do not look like a team ready to end a two-decade trophy drought, but they will recover and reach the quarter-finals, insists star Lionel Messi.

World player of the year Messi proved unstoppable all season with a Barcelona shirt on his back but with Argentina he has become a metaphor for the team's stuttering form which saw the albiceleste drop points to Bolivia and then just scrape another draw with Colombia.

World No. 6 David Ferrer defeated 10th-ranked hometown hero Andy Roddick to give Spain a 2-0 lead on Friday after the opening day of their Davis Cup quarter-final tie.

The Spaniards, seeking their third trophy in four years, moved to the brink of victory in the best-of-five matchup when Ferrer downed Roddick 7-6 (11/9), 7-5, 6-3.

Sweden's Gunilla Lindberg returned to the International Olympic Committee executive board Saturday, becoming the second woman on the ruling 15-member body.

Lindberg was elected unopposed Saturday to the single opening on the board, filling a spot vacated by Norway's Gerhard Heiberg after the completion of his four-year mandate.

Mark Webber was fastest in a wet first practice for Formula One's British Grand Prix on Friday as the Red Bull driver chases a second successive Silverstone victory.

The 34-year-old Australian posted a quickest lap of 1 minute, 46.603 seconds around the circuit, two-thirds of a second faster than Michael Schumacher, while Rubens Barrichello was third.

A festive South Korea Thursday celebrated a crushing victory in the contest to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, propelling its ambitions to be a global sporting powerhouse.

The alpine resort of Pyeongchang, making its third straight bid for the event, won outright in the first round of voting by the International Olympic Committee in Durban on Wednesday.

Part of a roof collapsed at the FC Twente football stadium in eastern Netherlands on Thursday, trapping an unknown number of people, a Dutch police spokesman said.

"I can confirm that around noon there was a collapse at the FC Twente stadium. Part of the roof collapsed," Jan Lamberts told Agence France Presse.

Even with half the season to go, the Formula One championship already appears to be a battle for second place as hopes of catching Sebastian Vettel are fading fast.

The defending champion goes into Sunday's British Grand Prix with a commanding 77-point lead, having won six of the eight races and been runner-up in the other two.

FIFA announced on Wednesday it had completed its investigation into Mohamed bin Hammam and its ethics committee would hear the case against the suspended Asian football chief on July 22.

The charges relate to alleged bribes of $40,000 bin Hammam either paid or offered to 25 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) associations in May during his campaign for the FIFA presidency.

Venus Williams still has a lot of work ahead to recapture the form that has made her a seven-time Grand Slam champion.

After joining her sister Serena in a fourth-round Wimbledon exit, Williams lost in singles and doubles before helping the Washington Kastles to a 21-18 World Team Tennis over-time victory Tuesday over reigning champion Kansas City.

The Copa America - the world's oldest international football tournament, going back to 1916, brings together some of the silkiest talents the global game has to offer.

A continental finishing school for the World Cup, or so the theory goes, the tournament allows perennial Latin American giants Brazil and Argentina a perfect opportunity to blood a new generation before, armed with the experience, they graduate to the senior tournament.