BRIEFLY : MUSTER TAKES IT HARD.

King of clay Thomas Muster jokes that when he visits Florida, his favorite surface is sand.

The Lipton Championships are played on hardcourts in Key Biscayne, but Muster turned the fourth round into a day at the beach Tuesday, beating Alex Corretja 6-4, 6-4.

Winning Lipton would represent a breakthrough for the 29-year-old Muster. All but three of his 43 career titles have come on clay, saddling him with a reputation as a one-surface player.

``I don't care,'' the second-ranked Austrian said. ``I think I've played well enough that people realize I can play on hardcourts. I don't think I have to prove anything to anybody at all.''

Jim Courier, seeking his biggest tournament title since 1993, beat Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. Courier will next face No. 4 Goran Ivanisevic, who beat 19-year-old Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia 6-4, 6-4.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: The Las Vegas Bowl would drop its current conference alignments and increase payouts to $800,000 a team, under a proposal to revamp a game that never caught on with local fans. The NCAA will be asked next month to approve the new bowl concept, which would match the third place Western Athletic Conference team against the best available opponent.

HOCKEY: Manon Rheaume, the only woman ever to play in an NHL exhibition game, and a fixture between the pipes this year for the Reno Renegades, was released from the Canadian national women's team.

ETC.: Michael McNeely, the NCAA's director of operations, was named Pacific's athletic director. McNeely, who begins his new job June 1, takes over for interim Cindy Spiro, who replaced Bob Lee after six years as athletic director at the Stockton university.