The Sports Review

Chelsea scored a solitary goal to win over Middlesbrough in their match at Stanford Bridge and by virtue of this win they have now climbed one spot up the Premiership table to gain the second place. Ricardo Carvalho was the surprise goal scorer for the Chelsea team in the fifth minute of the match and the Chelsea forwards missed out on a host of other goal scoring opportunities. Gareth Southgate of Middlesbrough said that his team played better in the second half and put a lot of pressure on Chelsea.

Avram Grant said that it was important to win the match in the context of the tournament even though his boys showcased a mediocre performance in the game. Avram said that his team deserved winning this game and is looking forward to the remaining few games with baited interest. Manchester United, a team that has received good reviews from former greats, is the team that is sitting pretty at the top of the table right now.

There were four tickets to the British Open golf tournament that were up for grabs in the finals of the International Qualifying rounds for Asia zone and none of the Indians who participated in the finals could make it to the prestigious sports tournaments in the world. Jyothi Randhawa and a few of his compatriots were outclassed by Malaysia’s Danny Chia and Australian Adam Blyth in the game held at Sentosa’s Serapong Golf course. Danny won the qualifying session with a three under 69.

There was a thrilling playoff between Lam Bing of Singapore and Filipino Angelo against Tomohiro Kondo of Japan for the third and the fourth place and eventually the Japanese player had to make way for the other two players to qualify. The Indians comprising of Randhawa, Gurbaaz Mann and Digvijay Singh played so poorly in the first round that they did not even turn up to play the second round.

Maria Sharapova, the Australian Open champion of 2008, has withdrawn from the WTA tournament in Key Biscayne citing a shoulder injury. The Russian was in sublime form this year winning 18 matches on the trot until she was beaten by the second seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova in the semi finals of the Pacific Life Open last week.

Sharapova said that she needed to take a break from the game as the hectic schedule of many tournaments is proving to be energy sapping. She said that she has been playing a lot of tennis since the start of this season and has been travelling a lot as well. She wanted to take a small break in order to get her mind and her body into top gear again. She said that she will return to playing tennis once she feels that she has got the much needed rest and that no one can force her to play.

Renault’s Fernando Alonso, who returned to the team after a miserable year with McLaren, feels that his team will be ready for the world title only by next year. The double world champion admitted that a third world title is unimaginable for him in this season. The 26 year old racer from Spain said that he is hoping that his team would improve in all areas to make the title bid possible at least in the next season. He added that he is waiting to have a wheel to wheel fight with a McLaren or Ferrari. He knew that his team was well behind the Ferrari, BMW or McLaren in this season.

He considers his team in the group of Toyota, Red Bull and Williams; whose performance depends on circuit and strategy and will be sometimes in front or behind in a race. Alonso was the champion in 2005 and 2006 but finished at the fourth position in this year’s Australian Grand Prix. Alonso thinks that the team should improve everything including the aerodynamics of the car. Even though he is not very happy with the engines, he cannot do anything about that. He said he is always interested in racing as it gives a chance to be in the middle of a group.

The title race for the Barclays Premiership League is hotting up as Manchester United toppled the current leaders Arsenal on Saturday and Arsenal could only manage a point in their home game against Middlesbrough. This game was the fourth consecutive league draw that the Arsenal Gunners have achieved and their arch rivals has been winning all most of their matches and now are top of the Premiership table. Manchester United currently has a match up their sleeves and also has a better goal difference margin when compared to the Gunners.

Arsenal coach Wenger is of the opinion that his young side are pretty capable of taking home the Premiership title as they have still eight more games left in the tournament. The manager said that the dressing room is a bit gloomy after the match and the somber atmosphere of losing a match could be felt in the dressing room. However, the coach was optimistic that the young boys still have the fire power in their belly to keep on fighting till the end and turn things around in their favor. He believes that the team needs to regain its lost confidence pretty quickly in order to win the English Premiership title this year.

Bill DeWitt III is pretty excited to take over as the President of the St. Louis Cardinals and is continuing the family legacy in the helm of affairs of the Cardinals as his father was a Cardinal Treasurer. DeWitt says that he is an avid baseball fan and is thrilled to lead the Cardinals into a different era. DeWitt III has taken over from Mark Lamping who has served the Cardinals as a president for the last 13 years. Lamping in his parting press conference blessed his successor and said that he cherished the association he had with Bill for the past 12 years and is confident that Bill will do a tremendous job for the Cardinals as the main man.

Bill DeWitt III is the 21st President of the Cardinals and was instrumental in changing the Cardinals logo to what it is at present. Bill said that he has been working for the Cardinals on various projects like licensing issues, merchandising, development of Jupiter Spring Training site and his pet project, the New Ballpark project. He says that the ballpark project will definitely happen and the Cardinal fans will be proud to see the state-of-the-art project coming up in the near future.

The Ottawa Senators were on top of their game last Tuesday as they easily bet the Bruins 4–1, thanks to the efforts of Dany Heatley who was instrumental in the Senators scoring all the four goals. Heatley had just scored three goals in his last thirteen appearances for the Senators, but has been in rich vein of four for the Senators in his last three games and it so happened that whenever he scores a goal the Ottawa Senators have won the games. Heatley had scored three goals in this match against the Bruins and it was his set up play that enabled Jason Spezza to score the fourth goal.

The goalie Martin Gerber was playing in his sixth straight start for the Senators and made 28 saves in the game. The goal for the Bruins was scored by Alex Auld and they have only won one of their last six games. The Senators outclassed the Bruins as they scored three goals in the second, with two of the goals coming in the power play. The sell out crowd at the Scotiabank Place were thrilled to see their hometown come up trumps against the Bruins and both the teams fielded players who did not wear a C on their shirt as the team captains from both the sides were injured.

Ana Ivanovic has made a vow that she will capture a Grand Slam title this year and the 20 year old hot tennis sensation has to show her prowess by winning the forthcoming Tier I event, the Pacific Life Open. She is the number one seed in this tournament that kicks off on Wednesday and has to repeat her last year form in a bid to capture the title. She has been steadily climbing in the ATP rankings since last year and she jumped to the Number two position after her appearance in the final of the 2008 Australian Open. Maria Sharapova is also expected to take part in this tournament and she was the one who beat the Serbian lass at the Australian Open final.

Both the Williams sisters will not be playing at the Indiana Wells tournament and the crowd will also not get to see the world number one Justine Henin play in this tournament. The tournament will feature six of the top 10 players in the world competing for the Pacific Life Open title and Ana Ivanovic is in the top half of the draw and is pitted to play either Raluca Olaru of Romania or China’s Yuan Meng in the first round of the tournament.

The American number one tennis player and booming server Andy Roddick came up with some stupendous tennis to overcome the heroic efforts of unseeded Spanish player Feliciano Lopez to win the 2008 Dubai Open with a score line that reads 6-7, 6-4 & 6-2. Andy Roddick who had recently won the Sap Open is on the top of his game right now, as he amassed a total of 84 aces in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. Lopez who also played some fabulous tennis during the course of the week by defeating top players like Ferrer, Davydenko and Berdych made Andy toil for his maiden victory in his first appearance in Dubai.

Roddick said that he was pretty happy to win the title and the main idea of playing this tournament was to test himself against some of the top players in the world. Roddick said that he felt he was on top of his game while he was playing in the match and was confident in his mind that he can pull this game off. Roddick said that any player can crack during pressure situations and that is what exactly happened in the second set with Lopez. Roddick said that he played the third set pretty well and hoped to continue the rich form well into the season.

The Arsenal crossed the second leg of Champions League by knocking out AC Milan, the Defending champions of the UEFA Champions League for 2-0. Cesc Fabregas was the sculptor of this win by scoring the first goal six minutes before the culmination of the match. He was followed by Emmanuel Abedayor for the second goal of the game. It was Emmanuel’s first goal for Arsenal in Champions League. This is the first time AC Milan is defeated by an English team. The performance by Arsenal members has created the feeling that they have become a force which cannot be ignored this season.

Arsenal possesses a one-point lead in Premier League and Fabregas is confident about the potential of Arsenal in capturing success in Premier League as well as in Champions League. According to Fabregas as Arsenal is not playing many internationals like Chelsea do, they won’t get a chance to win all four trophies hence, competing for the remaining two trophies really matters. He feels that, after beating the title holders at their home for the quarter-final berth and reaching the top of the Premier League rankings has boosted the morale of the team members in fighting for the tiles in the coming weeks.