London, Jan 10 : Kevin Pietersen, who stepped down as captain, is set to have his loyalty to England tested by a host of Indian Premier League teams.

Pietersen will be the star attraction when the IPL player auction commences on February 6, The Sun reported.

He could command a 1million pound deal to play in the six-week tournament, which starts on April 10.

Under the terms of his new England contract, Pietersen would only be available for the first 15 days, before returning for a two-Test series with West Indies.

Auckland  - Olympic champion Elena Dementieva completed a dream week to start her season, winning the ASB Classic title 6-4, 6-1 on Saturday over Elena Vesnina without dropping a set all week.

The fourth-ranked Dementieva stands in good form for the Australian Open with just nine days to go before the start of the first Grand Slam of 2009.

The 27-year-old needed just 88 minutes to secure success over her fellow Russian.

Brisbane, Australia  - France fell to a double disaster Saturday on the men's side of the Brisbane International, with both Paul-Henri Mathieu and Richard Gasquet crashing out at the semi-final stage.

Third seed Fernando Verdasco, hero of Spain's Davis Cup final over Argentina in November, dispatched Mathieu 6-2, 6-1, while notoriously irritating Czech Radek Stepanek wore down seventh seed Richard Gasquet 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Hong Kong  - Jelena Jankovic has cut her losses, withdrawing from a high-powered Hong Kong tuneup for the Australian Open on Saturday and flying straight to Melbourne suffering with the flu.

The Serb will now be well short on match practise for the Grand Slam which starts a week from Monday.

Jankovic said she had been ill for several days and had managed to play only one doubles match at Victoria Park in the World Team Challenge.

Oberhof, Germany - Russian Ekaterina Jurjeva on Friday won her first biathlon World Cup event of the season, when she beat local hero Andrea Hinkel by just 2.4 seconds.

20,000 spectators saw Hinkel lead for much of the race, but although she had to run one penalty loop after missing a target, Jurjeva managed to just edge Hinkel for victory in a time of 22:09.7 minutes.

Hinkel said that she had been very tired towards the end. "The legs were really sore. On the final kilometres I was counting the declines down. But I am totally happy with my second place."

Madrid - The disciplinary committee of the Spanish football federation announced on Friday evening a fine of 3,000 euros (4,093 dollars) on veteran Sevilla striker Frederic Kanoute for displaying a shirt in support of the Palestinian cause.

Kanoute - a French-born Muslim who plays for the Mali national team - showed the shirt after scoring for Sevilla in Wednesday's 2-1 King's Cup defeat of Deportivo Coruna.

The committee believes that he has contravened Article 137c of the federation's regulations, which forbids political and religious messages by players on the field.