AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Oracle edged series-leading Alinghi by four seconds Friday morning, then returned in the afternoon to win an all-American duel with Stars & Stripes in the challenger series for the America's Cup.

	Oracle of San Francisco had a big day Friday, edging out standings leader Alinghi here, and then later beating Stars & Stripes.

Oracle, which had four defeats in five races before Chris Dickson was restored as skipper last week, has nine triumphs in 13 starts and was in fourth place in the Louis Vuitton Cup standings.

In another upset, Le Defi of France posted its first victory of the series, beating second-place OneWorld by 57 seconds. OneWorld sailed over its spinnaker at the second mark when leading by 26 seconds and caught the trolling sail around its rudder.

Le Defi, which had been winless in 12 races, sailed past to take a 52-second lead at the third mark and won the race with ease.

Le Defi surrendered a lead with a costly error in its afternoon match against GBR Challenge and the loss by 14 seconds cost it a chance to overtake Mascalzone Latino and get out of last place.

Before racing started Friday, Alinghi was ordered to re-sail its match from Wednesday against GBR after the British challenger protested the result. Alinghi was 7:45 ahead at the finish, but GBR argued it was forced to sail around submerged rocks and islands because the race committee erred in placing markers.

The result was voided Friday by the America's Cup international jury and the match rescheduled for Saturday.

The resurgence of Larry Ellison's Oracle campaign continued in a seesawing final run to cross the finish line a half-boat length ahead of Alinghi and then beat Stars & Stripes by 18 seconds.

Against Alinghi, Oracle led around all marks but by a diminishing margin at each. It was 25 seconds ahead at the first, 17 ahead at the second and only eight up turning for home on the 12.5-nautical mile course.

Both yachts sailed without their billionaire backers. Ellison has not been on the Oracle yacht in recent races and Alinghi's Ernesto Bertarelli has returned to Switzerland on business.

Four-time America's Cup winner Dennis Conner returned to the helm of Stars & Stripes in a race for the first time in three years and steered the New York boat to a 1:09 victory over Mascalzone, while Sweden's Victory Challenge beat GBR Challenge by 1:01 in another morning match.

Conner drove a faultless race to lead around all marks against Mascalzone and give his team its sixth victory in 14 starts. He couldn't repeat against Oracle.

The remaining afternoon match, Alinghi vs. Prada, was abandoned due to high winds.

Alinghi led the standings with 11 victories in 13 starts, followed by OneWorld and defending challenger champion Prada, each with 10 triumphs.

A round of catch-up matches was scheduled for Saturday morning, with Alinghi and Oracle racing twice each from races deferred earlier in the rounds due to high winds.