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/ 30 December 2005
The sporting year of 2006, packed with high-profile events dotted around the globe, will reignite fresh debates over best teams, greatest players. Brazil, England or Argentina for the World Cup? Bode Miller or Hermann Maier to snatch the Winter Olympics limelight?
Defending champions Liverpool survived a Champions League scare on Tuesday before booking their place in the multimillion-dollar group stages where they will be joined by a little-known Swiss team who were playing amateur football nine years ago.
England’s belief that they are serious World Cup contenders suffered a shattering reality check on Wednesday when Denmark sent them crashing to their worst defeat for 25 years. Fortunately for coach Sven-Goran Eriksson and his bunch of highly-paid but under-performing players, the shambolic 4-1 defeat in Copenhagen was a friendly international.
French Open champion Rafael Nadal insists he will not be Wimbledon king this year despite his blistering passage into the second round. The 19-year-old, who one day hopes to become only the second Spanish men’s champion at the All England Club, crushed American veteran Vince Spadea 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 on his Centre Court debut.
Andre Agassi’s record 58th grand slam appearance ended in a shattering first-round defeat at the French Open on Tuesday, the loss surely marking the final act of the 35-year-old American’s Roland Garros adventure. Dominant at the start and shaky at the finish, Justine Henin-Hardenne won her first-round match on Tuesday.
Marat Safin has been voted the sexiest man in tennis, but it’s success at the French Open he really craves as he desperately tries to pull his season out of a depressing tailspin. His second career grand-slam victory at the Australian Open in January has been the only highlight of what has become a wretched 2005.
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/ 14 October 2004
Deadly hit men Michael Owen and Thierry Henry stunningly shot down rumours of their international demise on Wednesday as both men found the target to keep their countries on the road to the 2006 World Cup finals. Owen scored the only goal of the game as England beat Azerbaijan 1-0 in windswept Baku while Henry added France’s second goal in a 2-0 win against Cyprus.
Olympic competitors have been forced to adopt a host of cool measures, from special suits to protective headgear, to beat the soaring summer temperatures that will rocket to more than 30 degrees Celsius over the next two weeks. Even horses taking part in the equestrian programme are getting in on the act.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
Marcelo Rios thought it was only good for grazing, Wayne Ferreira loves it but thinks it too slow while Marat Safin hates it so much, he’s never going to play another Wimbledon. Nothing divides opinions like the green, green grass of the All England Club and it was driving mercurial Russian Safin to distraction on Tuesday as he crashed out in the first round and vowed never to return.
Ninth seed Elena Dementieva became the first Russian woman to reach the final of the French Open for 16 years on Thursday when she brushed aside Argentina’s 14th seed Paola Suarez 6-0, 7-5 in a disappointing semifinal. In the 107-year history of Roland Garros there has never been a Russian winner in the women’s singles.