The weekend’s football programme was dominated by Sunday’s fixtures as Tottenham and Arsenal sought revenge for embarrassing defeats inflicted on them by Manchester City and Manchester United respectively back in August.
Mario Balotelli’s late penalty gave Manchester City a 3-2 win at home to Tottenham, but not before a stamp on Scott Parker’s head while the Spurs midfielder was on the floor which went unnoticed by referee Howard Webb.
Danny Welbeck’s 81st minute strike gave Manchester United all three points against Arsenal at the Emirates after Robin van Persie’s second-half strike had cancelled out Antonio Valencia’s opener.
Saturday’s Premier League results meant that defeat for Arsenal did little to dent their aspirations of Champions League qualification as their rivals slipped up – Liverpool lost 3-1 at Bolton while Chelsea could only manage a 0-0 draw at home to Norwich.
Andy Murray made it into the second week at the Australian Open after his opponent retired hurt in the third set after Murray had won the opening two 6-1, 6-1. He will face Kei Nishikori of Japan, who beat sixth-seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, in the quarter-final.
There were few other shocks in this morning’s men’s fourth-round matches. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych all progressed.
In the women’s singles, Serena Williams crashed out in straight sets to the unseeded Ekaterina Makarova. Top seeds Caroline Wozniacki and Petra Kvitova beat Serbs Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic respectively in straight sets. Defending champion Kim Clijsters recovered from losing the first set against Li Na to win in three sets.
Neil Robertson won snooker’s Masters title for the first time as he beat Shaun Murphy 10-6 in yesterday’s final. Murphy had the better of the early frames but had only three of the first six frames to show for it and Robertson won fix of the next seven to storm into a 9-4 which proved too much for Murphy to claw back.
Saracens and Edinburgh both made it into the quarter finals of the Heineken Cup with wins over Treviso and Cardiff Blues respectively to top their pools. Saracens will host Clermont Auvergne while Edinburgh will play Toulouse at home. In the other quarter finals Munster will take on Ulster and Leinster will welcome Blues.
New York Giants and New England Patriots both won their championship matches to set up a repeat of the 2008 Superbowl in this year’s showpiece match. The Giants needed a dramatic overtime field goal to get past San Francisco 49ers, while the Baltimore Ravens came close to forcing overtime with the Patriots but Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff pulled a 32-yard field goal wide.
