With the French Open looming large on the horizon, Nadal is back in the claycourt groove as he continues his comeback from a knee injury that sidelined him for seven months.

The Spaniard has won four titles in six tournaments since returning in Chile in February, finishing runner-up in the other two, yet remains in unfamiliar territory outside the world's top four.

Starting in Madrid next week, however, where he suffered a surprise third-round exit last year to compatriot Fernando Verdasco, fifth-ranked Nadal can start making inroads.

While the Mallorcan must defend 3,000 points at the Rome Masters and then at Roland Garros, where he will be chasing an eighth French Open title, the second half of the year looks like being a win-win situation for the 11-times grand slam champion.

A stunning second-round defeat by Czech Lukas Rosol at Wimbledon last year proved to be his final match of 2012, meaning the Spaniard will have six months to harvest ranking points and close the gap on those above him.

Djokovic is hoping to finish a third successive season as world No.1 but Brad Gilbert, former world number four and coach to Andre Agassi, believes Nadal has will be breathing down the Serb's neck later this year.

"To me this is the meatiest part of the season," Gilbert told ATPWorldTour.com

"You've got two Masters 1000s back-to-back and then the French and Wimbledon. That's 6,000 points up for grabs over a short stretch, and what happens during this time will set the tone as to who has a shot of finishing No. 1.

"Djokovic is in good position now but it still could be a very tight race."

Djokovic, world number two Roger Federer and number three Andy Murray will all be defending sackloads of points after the French Open, and providing Nadal suffers no injury setbacks he will be relishing a pressure-free second half of the year.

Gilbert said Nadal's decision to delay his comeback until after the Australian Open and then skip the Miami Masters was paying dividends.

"What a tremendous effort to be in the final every week he's played. I love the way he goes about his business," Gilbert said. "He didn't rush back until he was close to 100 percent, and the results back up that he made the right decision." (Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory. So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said.

China denies any incursion, but Indian officials say that for two weeks, the soldiers have refused to move back over the so-called Line of Actual Control that divides Indian-ruled territory from Chinese-run land, leaving the government on the verge of a crisis with its powerful northeastern neighbor.

Indian officials fear that if they react with force, the face-off could escalate into a battle with the powerful People's Liberation Army. But doing nothing would leave a Chinese outpost deep in territory India has ruled since independence.

"If they have come 19 kilometers into India, it is not a minor LAC violation. It is a deliberate military operation. And even as India protests, more tents have come up," said Sujit Dutta, a China specialist at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi.

"Clearly, the Chinese are testing India to see how far they can go," he said.

That is not China's stated view.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday that Chinese troops had been carrying out normal patrols and had not crossed the boundary.

"China is firmly opposed to any acts that involve crossing the Line of Actual Control and sabotaging the status quo," she said at a daily briefing in Beijing as she was repeatedly questioned about the dispute.

Hua said talks to defuse the dispute were ongoing and that it should not affect relations. "As we pointed out many times, the China-India border issue is one which was left over from the past. The two sides reached important consensus that this issue should not affect the overall bilateral relations," Hua said.

Local army commanders from both sides have held three meetings over the crisis, according to Indian officials. India's foreign secretary called in the Chinese ambassador to register a strong protest. Yet the troops did not move, and even pitched a second tent, Indian officials said.

The timing of the crisis, weeks before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is to visit India, has surprised many here. The Chinese leader's decision to make India his first trip abroad since taking office two months ago had been seen as an important gesture toward strengthening ties between rival powers that have longstanding border disputes but also growing trade relations.

Manoj Joshi, a defense analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said the timing of the incursion raises questions about "whether there is infighting within the Chinese leadership, or whether someone is trying to upstage Li."

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said Wednesday that while he had no plans to cancel a trip to Beijing next week to prepare for Li's visit, the government could reconsider in the coming week.

"A week is a long time in politics," he told reporters.

Indian politicians accused the scandal-plagued government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of floundering in fear before China.

"China realizes that India has a weak government, and a prime minister who is powerless," said Yashwant Sinha, a former foreign minister from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

He demanded a stronger response. "A bully will back off the moment it realizes that it's dealing with a country which will not submit to its will," Sinha said.

Former Defense Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav called the government "cowardly and incompetent." He warned that China was trying to annex more territory to add to the spoils it took following its victory over India in a brief 1962 border war.

Defense Minister A.K. Antony countered that India is "united in its commitment to take every possible step to safeguard our interests."

Supporters of the right-wing Shiv Sena party burned effigies of Singh, Antony and other top officials Wednesday, demanding India retaliate by barring Chinese imports.

China is India's biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade heavily skewed in China's favor, crossing $75 billion in 2011.

Analysts feel linking a troop withdrawal to continued trade could work.

"The Chinese have to learn that such aggression cannot be delinked from trade," Dutta said.

Though the two countries have held 15 rounds of talks, their border disputes remain unresolved. India says China is occupying 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) in the Aksai Chin plateau in the western Himalayas, while China claims around 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Analysts said they were baffled by Beijing's motives, since its actions could force India to move closer to Beijing's biggest rival, the United States.

"The Chinese for some reason don't seem able to see that," said Joshi.

China's aggressive posture could also force India to accelerate its own military modernization program, analysts said.

The stand-off may eventually be resolved diplomatically, "but what it really shows is the PLA's contempt for our military capability," former Indian navy chief Sushil Kumar wrote in The Indian Express newspaper.

It could also push the government to agree to the army's longstanding demand to create its own strike corps on the border.

"By needling the Indians, they are helping us to accelerate our modernization," Joshi said.

___

Associated Press researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.

TORONTO (Reuters) - The playoffs for a National Hockey League (NHL) season that nearly never was open on Tuesday with memories of a bitter labor dispute all but forgotten in favor of an intriguing race for the Stanley Cup.

A compacted 48-game schedule that began in January with NHL players and owners apologizing to disgruntled fans and promising a season packed with unpredictable results delivered in spades, setting the stage for an equally fascinating playoffs.

The top-ranked Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference and Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference begin as clear favorites to meet in a best-of-seven games Stanley Cup final that will be played in steamy late-June temperatures.

But if there are any lessons to be taken from past years, it is that anything can happen. The Los Angeles Kings proved this just last season by sneaking in as an eighth seed and upsetting the Western Conference's top three teams before defeating the New Jersey Devils to claim the franchise's first Stanley Cup.

The Kings are back in the postseason ready to open defense of their crown against the St. Louis Blues as part of a 16-team playoff for hockey's 'Holy Grail.'

To get their names engraved on Lord Stanley's famous mug, however, players must survive one of sports' ultimate tests of endurance and win four punishing best-of-seven series before finally hoisting the silver Cup.

No team knows more about the playoff grind than the Detroit Red Wings, who are in the postseason for a 22nd consecutive year while the Toronto Maple Leafs snapped what had been the longest active playoff drought by returning to the postseason for the first time since 2004.

The Red Wings, who needed a win in their final regular season game to extend their streak, open against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday while the Maple Leafs face the Boston Bruins in an Original Six matchup starting on Wednesday.

For hockey purists, the playoffs will provide a blast of nostalgia with all six original NHL franchises (Boston, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers) competing for the first time since 1996.

The opening round will also feature the first playoff clash between clubs from Montreal and rival Ottawa since the Montreal Maroons and the original Senators franchise faced off in 1928.

Not since the Canadiens celebrated the last of their 24 Stanley Cups in 1993 has the treasured trophy been paraded through the streets of a Canadian city and the country is thirsting to see that drought end.

PLENTY OF FIREPOWER

Canadian attention will be focused on Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and the Vancouver Canucks, who will all carry the hopes of a hockey-mad nation into the playoffs and try to return the Cup to its spiritual home.

Pittsburgh and Chicago enter the playoffs as the betting favorites with good reason after record-smashing seasons.

The Blackhawks, who open against the Minnesota Wild, spent the entire campaign atop the West standings earning points in each of their first 24 games to shatter the longest previous season-opening streak of 16 games set by Anaheim.

With plenty of firepower, led by Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, the league's stingiest defense and spectacular play from journeyman netminder Ray Emery, Chicago lost just seven times in regulation to claim the franchise's second Presidents' Trophy, as the NHL team with the best regular season record.

In the East, the Penguins also took a run at the NHL record book reeling off 15 consecutive win in March to become the first team to post a perfect calendar month (minimum, 10 games).

Already with a star-studded lineup featuring league most valuable players Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins loaded up for a Stanley Cup run at the trade deadline by adding former scoring champion Jarome Iginla from Calgary, Dallas forward Brenden Morrow and San Jose defenseman Douglas Murray.

Crosby, who was putting together another MVP campaign, missed the last month of the schedule with a broken jaw but is expected to be on the ice when the Penguins open against the New York Islanders on Wednesday.

With Crosby fit and Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin back in top form fans are anticipating a potential showdown between the league's two marquee players.

Ovechkin opened the season in a funk but finished in a flurry by scoring 23 goals in his final 23 contests to capture the Rocket Richard trophy as the league's top goal scorer.

The Capitals and Rangers will meet in the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons with Ovechkin going up against Henrik Lundqvist, the NHL's reigning Vezina Trophy winner as top netminder.

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

Sunday, April 28

Molde 1 Stromsgodset IF 2

Rosenborg Trondheim 0 Sandnes Ulf 1

Sarpsborg 081 Honefoss BK 1

Tromso2 FK Haugesund1

Viking Stavanger4 Sogndal 1

Saturday, April 27

Lillestrom3 IK Start2

Valerenga Oslo2 Aalesund1

Friday, April 26

Brann Bergen2 Odd Grenland0

Standings P W D L FAPts

1Aalesund6 4 1 1 11 513

-------------------------

2Stromsgodset IF 6 4 1 1 9413

3Viking Stavanger6 4 0 2 9612

-------------------------

4Brann Bergen6 4 0 2 8712

-------------------------

5Rosenborg Trondheim 6 3 1 2 11 510

6Lillestrom6 3 1 2 9710

7FK Haugesund6 3 1 2 9910

8Tromso6 2 3 1 879

9IK Start6 2 2 2 11 11 8

10 Sandnes Ulf 6 2 2 2 458

11 Sarpsborg 086 1 4 1 677

12 Valerenga Oslo6 2 0 4 410 6

13 Honefoss BK 6 1 2 3 910 5

-------------------------

14 Sogndal 6 1 2 3 512 5

-------------------------

15 Odd Grenland6 1 1 4 474

16 Molde 6 0 1 5 510 1

1: Champions League preliminary round

2-3: Europa League

4: Europa League depending on domestic cup

14:Relegation play-off

15-16: Relegation

South Korea's Kospi lost 0.3 percent to 1,938.63 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged down 0.1 percent to 22,535.15.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4 percent to 5,119.70 and stocks in Taiwan, Indonesia and New Zealand also rose. Markets in mainland China and Japan were closed for holidays.

The U.S. government said Friday that the economy expanded 2.5 percent in the first quarter over a year earlier, falling short of expectations of 3 percent growth and compounding worries about the global economy. The report came after Japan said its consumer prices fell 0.9 percent in March, underlining challenges to the government's efforts to pull the economy out of a long spell of debilitating deflation.

The downbeat reports were tempered by expectations the European Central Bank will either lower interest rates or expand financial support for the 17-country euro area at its meeting Thursday, said Lim Ho-sang, a Seoul-based economist at Samsung Futures.

Investors are also waiting for more data to better assess the health of the U.S. private sector as the weaker-than-expected growth of the U.S. economy largely stemmed from lower government spending. U.S. March housing sales and April employment figures are scheduled to be released this week.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 31 cents to $92.69 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 64 cents to $93 a barrel on Friday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3047 from $1.3029. The dollar fell to 97.59 yen from 98.03 yen.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress got rid of a headache on Friday when it rescued the flying public from flight delays caused by its budget cutting. But in the view of many lawmakers, the pain is just about to begin.

Members of Congress and groups representing people hit by across-the-board budget cuts, ranging from cancer patients to welfare recipients, say the quick action on air traffic control staffing underscored the importance of being visible to millions of Americans.

"What are we going to do, every time there's a fire we're going to put it out by moving some funds around? That's a shell game," said Representative Gerald Connolly, a Democrat from northern Virginia.

"I'm going to predict that there's going to be more weeping and gnashing of teeth, as sequestration sets in and we're going to continue to approach this on a piecemeal basis," he said.

Next in line for individual funding relief will be advocates for national parks, low-income housing, AIDS funding, meals on wheels and Community Development Block Grants, Connolly said, adding that budget cuts for these and other safety-net services will be felt severely by local communities.

Representatives for some of these other programs said it was the television images of lines in airports and the interviews with angry passengers that led to action, combined with the lobbying power of the travel industry.

"It means we worry about who's going to scream the loudest now," said Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, which has been lobbying against cuts in federal funding of medical research.

A heavy dose of lobbying from the airline and travel industry preceded the legislation enacted Friday, which permitted the Federal Aviation Administration to move money to avoid the furloughs of air traffic controllers that were causing the delays.

Sequestration - the $109 billion in automatic across-the-board budget cuts enacted by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama - formally took effect in March and barring Congressional action to replace it may continue for a decade.

Some programs won relief from Congress in March, notably the meat and poultry industry, which fought successfully to prevent furloughs of U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors.

But because the furloughs in other programs, such as the FAA, were not immediately implemented, the impact was slow to build.

TRAVEL LOBBY

The travel industry began to accelerate its lobbying effort after it learned early last week from the FAA that as many as 6,700 flights per day could be delayed, potentially reducing capacity at major airports by 30 to 40 percent.

Nicholas Calio, president of Airlines for America, or A4A, the main airlines industry group, worked the phones throughout the week, said Jean Medina, senior vice president for communications at A4A.

"He certainly was in very close contact with a lot of people to make sure they understood what needed to happen," she said.

Its first course of action was to ask the administration for a 30-day delay.

When that was denied, the industry group began focusing on a legislative fix that would clear both houses with bipartisan support and be signed into law by Obama.

US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker, who would head the world's largest airline if his carrier's merger with AMR Corp's American Airlines is approved, said he spent the past week making calls to government officials in his airline's hub markets to express concern about the furloughs.

"What I know is we're doing great disservice to the flying public and to the citizens of the United States and we need for this to get resolved," Parker told Reuters from Arizona earlier this week.

The non-profit U.S. Travel Association said it mounted its own "sequester offensive" in response to the furloughs and began a consumer texting campaign that connected travelers who had been delayed at airports to members of Congress.

The association also asked industry workers to contact their representatives in Congress to explain that the travel delays put their jobs at risk.

"We were in frequent contact with Congress urging them to solve this problem as soon as possible," Erik Hansen, director of domestic policy at the U.S. Travel Association, said on Friday. "We were able to generate hundreds of calls and emails to Congress and we're hoping that helped to move the ball forward," Hansen said.

VISIBILITY

Airlines for America reported about $6.3 million in lobbying expenses in 2012 according to the Center for Responsive Politics; the U.S. Travel Association spent about $1.7 million; US Airways and Delta about $2.8 million each.

While other interest groups have a lobbying presence in the national capital, they are hard pressed to match the visibility of air travel.

Compared to "longer lines at airports," said Cynthia Pellegrini, a vice president at the March of Dimes, which raises funds to improve the health of mothers and babies, "you can't see that a child's belly is emptier because her family couldn't get food assistance."

"We are not as well-heeled as the travel industry," said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of social welfare organizations. "But I think as more people learn of this appalling choice," that Congress made on Friday, "they will get as mad as I am."

Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, home to a major Delta Air Lines hub in Minneapolis, was among the members backing an FAA budget fix on Thursday when the Senate passed it.

She called it a "practical, pragmatic answer to an immediate problem," but acknowledged that it does nothing to get Congress closer to fixing the problems caused by sequestration. More effects of the cuts, demonstrated dramatically to the public, could do that, she added.

She may not have long to wait. Organizations that have been more quietly protesting the budget cuts were rethinking their strategy on Friday in the wake of Congress' action.

"It is inexplicable why proven and effective Meals on Wheels programs get overlooked from exemption from the sequester when both the business and social case exists," said Ellie Hollander, President and CEO of Meals on Wheels Association of America.

"I guess that's because we need to be a different kind of squeaky wheel."

(Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs, Susan Heavy and Karey Van Hall; Editing by Fred Barbash and Tim Dobbyn)

No shots had been fired and no one was injured, North Carolina A&T State University, said. It said on its website that normal activities could resume on the campus.

School officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment about whether a gunman had been found.

Several public schools in Greensboro were also locked down Friday due to their proximity to the university.

Educators and police around the United States remain on high alert for possible shooting incidents in the wake of an attack on an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December that left 26 dead, including 20 young children.

Last week the University of Rhode Island was locked down for a few hours after reports of a possible gunman. That incident ended with no gunman found, police said.

North Carolina A&T State University has more than 10,000 students.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Scott Malone and David Gregorio)

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Arkansas lawmakers rejected on Monday a compromise measure that would have extended health insurance to more of its low-income citizens, turning back what some saw as a possible model for other states also wrestling with opposition to U.S. government expansion plans for Medicaid.

The measure failed to attract the 75 votes needed in the Republican-dominated Arkansas House of Representatives, drawing 69 votes for, 28 against and one abstention. Proponents plan to try again Tuesday and are scrambling to convert more votes, said Jay Barth, a political science professor at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas.

"There is a strong sense that the votes are there to do this but that the political pressure being felt by members who plan to seek either reelection or another office in the near future is very intense," Barth said.

The Arkansas plan has been closely watched around the United States as a potential watershed for President Barack Obama's sweeping Medicaid expansion, a major provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that aims to extend health coverage to at least 12 million low-income Americans by the end of the decade.

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, a Democrat, spearheaded the plan, which would use Medicaid funds to buy private insurance to expand coverage to state residents who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty line, or $15,415 per year. The insurance would be purchased through a health insurance exchange that the federal government is scheduled to begin operating with Arkansas on January 1, 2014.

The online marketplace would allow people with incomes of up to 400 percent of the poverty line to obtain private coverage at federally subsidized rates.

"He's of course disappointed, but not done yet," Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Beebe, said.

The Arkansas plan has excited interest among some conservatives in states such as Texas and Louisiana who view the use of Medicaid money to buy private insurance as a way to help the most vulnerable without a major government expansion.

Marilyn Tavenner, a top U.S. health official who oversees Medicaid, Medicare for the elderly and the implementation of "Obamacare" for the administration, said last week that Arkansas state officials brought the idea to the administration and that U.S. officials are now discussing the idea with a handful of states.

President Obama's healthcare reform law has run into stiff political resistance in Republican-controlled states, particularly in the South, where leaders have been unwilling to expand Medicaid or set up their own health exchanges.

Provisions of the reform law have been challenged in court cases around the country. And in a ruling last June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the healthcare reform law on constitutional grounds but allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion.

The expansion has since been accepted by governors in about half of the 50 U.S. states.

(Reporting by Suzi Parker in Little Rock, David Morgan in Washington and Michele Gershberg in New York; Writing by Carey Gillam in Kansas City; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)