Los Angeles' Chris Paul had a season-high 41 points and 17 assists to lead the Clippers to a come-from-behind 126-122 win at Portland on Wednesday, denying the Trail Blazers a win that would have clinched the NBA's Northwest Division title.

Portland, which had won its previous four games, will have to wait to clinch their first division title in five years. The Blazers remained 6-1/2 games clear of Oklahoma City, which failed to make up ground after suffering a home defeat against Dallas in an even higher-scoring game.

Serena Williams marked another milestone Wednesday, punching her semi-final ticket at the Miami Masters with her 700th career match win, a 7-6 (7/4), 1-6, 6-3 triumph over Sabine Lisicki.

Williams will face a familiar foe for a place in the final, taking on popular Romanian Simona Halep, a 6-1, 7-5 winner over Sloane Stephens.

Before the first set ended Tuesday, Novak Djokovic had busted a racket in anger, drawn jeers from the crowd and received two code violations, which cost him a point penalty.

There were no further outbursts, and as Djokovic's play improved, so did his mood. He rallied from a break down in the second set and beat Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-7 (3), 7-5, 6-0 in the fourth round of the Miami Open.

Climbers are returning to Mount Everest as the climbing industry recovers from last year's deadly disaster on the world's highest peak, a Nepalese mountaineering official said Wednesday.

Climbers from four teams have already been issued permits allowing them to climb the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak, another 11 written applications are pending and more applications are expected in the next few days, said Gyanendra Shrestha, an official at Nepal's Mountaineering Department.

Andros Townsend scored a late equalizer as England held Italy to a 1-1 draw in an international friendly at the Juventus Stadium on Tuesday.

Substitute Townsend leveled 11 minutes from time to cancel out Graziano Pelle's first-half opener after Italy had dominated the opening hour.

The Netherlands beat Spain 2-0 in a friendly on Tuesday to earn embattled coach Guus Hiddink some breathing space after a poor start to his second term in charge of the Dutch national team.

Center back Stefan de Vrij and midfielder Davy Klaassen scored first half goals for the Netherlands in the morale-boosting victory.

Sergio Aguero and Javier Pastore scored in each half and Argentina defeated Ecuador 2-1 in a friendly match Tuesday.

In a lively game under snowy conditions at the start, Argentina managed to get another win in its round of tuneups in the United States ahead of the Copa America in June.

Tickets for the Rio Olympics went on sale Tuesday with the first batch of a total 7.5 million being made available online to thousands of fans who had pre-registered via the official web portal.

The www.rio2016.com portal urged fans to "hold on" just ahead of a sales process starting from 1700 GMT after organizers last week released a detailed competition schedule for each sport allowing fans to seek out their favored events.

Nico Rosberg admits he was “scared” by Sebastian Vettel's debut victory for Ferrari in last weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix which caught the German's Mercedes rivals by surprise.

Vettel stunned Mercedes' world champion Lewis Hamilton on Sunday at the Sepang International circuit with an audacious victory, his first behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

Britain will not have football teams at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro because the English Football Association failed to gain support from the other three federations.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are against united British teams, saying they risk their independence within FIFA.