Top seeds Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy began their campaign for back-to-back titles with a straight-set win against Spanish pair of Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Ivan Navarro in the first round of the US $ 869,000 Japan Open in Tokyo on Thursday. The Indo-Czech pair, who won the Thailand Open last week, beat the unseeded Spanish duo 6-4, 7-5 in one hour and 13 minutes to advance to the quarter-finals of the hard court event.
Cristiano Ronaldo answered his critics with a hat-trick as Real Madid came from behind to win 4-1 at Alaves and provisionally go three points clear at the top of La Liga.
Lionel Messi created a goal and scored another as Barcelona came from behind to beat struggling Rayo Vallecano 3-1 at home on Saturday and stay seven points clear at the top of La Liga.
World No 2 Andy Murray's three-point contribution to Britain's defeat of Belgium in the Davis Cup final concluded one of the most remarkable years ever achieved in the competition by an individual player. Below are the key facts:
The president of Chile's ANFP national football association Sergio Jadue has resigned from his post and gone to the United States to talk to the FBI about corruption at football governing body FIFA, local media reported on Wednesday.
Germany overcame an early red card to Emre Can and eventually eased to a 3-0 victory away to Estonia on Sunday in a Euro 2020 qualifier to go joint-top of Group C.
Rainer Ettzinger of Austria was leading 6-3 in the first set against fourth seed Ivan Cerovic of Crotia, when the chair umpire called off the match.
Barcelona provisionally went top of La Liga for the first time since October after Luis Suarez, Neymar and Lionel Messi scored in a 6-0 thrashing of Alaves on Saturday although the win was overshadowed by a serious injury to Aleix Vidal.
IMAGES from the Champions League 2nd semi-final first leg match between Barcelona and Liverpool at Nou Camp on Wednesday
Serie A leaders Juventus scored twice in the last five minutes to win 3-2 at Inter Milan, who had earlier come from behind to lead despite playing with 10 men in an extraordinary match on Saturday.
Turkey beat Croatia 3-1 on penalties after their Euro 2008 quarter-final finished 1-1 following extra-time on Friday. They will meet Germany, who beat Portugal 3-2 on Thursday, in the first semi in Basel on Wednesday.
Turkey showed their battling qualities in the group stages, rallying from 1-0 down to defeat Switzerland 2-1 and scoring three times in the last 15 minutes against Czech Republic to snatch a thrilling 3-2 win.
The bid by Facebook highlights the company's efforts to accelerate its push into video as it tries to take advertising dollars from television and increase the time people spend on its platform.
Croatia showed they are well-equipped to make a serious bid for the Euro 2008 title when their reserves swept aside Poland 1-0 in their final Group B game on Monday.
The fourth seeded Indo-Czech pair scored a thrilling 6-4, 0-6, 10-4 (match tie-break) victory over Ivan Ljubicic and Robin Soderling in the semi-finals.
Croatia pulled off a memorable 2-1 win over Group B favourites Germany on Thursday to move to the brink of a place in the Euro 2008 quarter-finals.
Leander Paes and partner Lukas Dlouhy stormed into the doubles semi-finals in the 713,000 euros Gerry Weber Open tennis tournament in Halle, Germany, on Thursday. The fourth seeded Indo-Czech combine defeated Germany's Michael Berrer and Tommy Haas 6-3, 6-4 in 56 minutes to set up a meeting with Ivan Lubicic of Croatia and Robin Soderling of Sweden.
Carlos Moya has confirmed his participation for the Chennai Open in January.
Fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko threw away a two-set lead before going down 4-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 to Croatian Ivan Ljubicic in the third round of the French Open on Saturday. Ljubicic, seeded 28th, will next face France's Gael Monfils, who beat Austrian Juergen Melzer.
Barcelona closed in on the La Liga title by thrashing local rivals Espanyol 5-0 on Sunday as Atletico Madrid dropped out of the race after losing 2-1 at Levante and Real Madrid beat Valencia 3-2.
Former world number one Lleyton Hewitt will travel to Paris to begin preparations for the French Open, the Australian hoping a nagging hip injury will clear by the start of the tournament on May 25. Hewitt has not played in more than a month because of the injury and said he would give himself until the first day of the second Grand Slam of the year to decide whether he would compete.
A hat-trick from Giovani dos Santos helped Barcelona to a 5-3 victory away to relegated Real Murcia.
Top seed Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro set a record for the longest semi-final ever played at Wimbledon on Friday as the Serb favourite eventually triumphed in the fifth set after four hours 43 minutes of scintillating action.
Tommy Robredo won a first-round thriller against Philipp Kohlschreiber in the first round of the Hamburg Masters.
Andy Murray overcame a sluggish start before sweeping past Sweden's Thomas Johansson at the $1.5 million Qatar Open.
Schalke 04 overpowered local rivals VfL Bochum 3-0 to strengthen their bid for a return to the Champions League.
Andy Murray beat Filippo Volandri 6-4, 6-1 at the Monte Carlo Masters to line up a third-round match with Novak Djokovic.
Former French Open champions Gustavo Kuerten and Carlos Moya slumped to first-round defeats at the Monte Carlo Masters.
Germany's Tommy Haas came from a set down to upset 11th-seeded Andy Murray 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 in Wednesday's fourth round and maintain his impressive run at the Pacific Life Open.
Four months after back surgery, Wimbledon champion Andy Murray was understandably cautious on Saturday about his chances of reaching a fourth Australian Open final in five years.
Barcelona squandered the chance to go 11 points clear in La Liga on Sunday after blowing a two-goal lead in the space of six minutes in a 2-2 draw at Villarreal overshadowed by a controversial penalty.
The methane emission from India's dams could be 27.86% of the methane emission from all the large dams of the world, which is more than the share of any other country
Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi continued his fine run to defeat International Master Ivan Popov of Russia in the 10th and penultimate round of World Youth Star chess tournament.
The Swiss, dreaming of capturing the only Grand Slam title to have eluded him, was drawn on Friday in the same half as several dangerous opponents, including former champion Juan Carlos Ferrero.
Manchester City withdrew from the battle to secure the services of Arsenal's Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez, leaving Jose Mourinho's Manchester United as the most likely destination for the 29-year-old.
He struck back in style and defeated the defending champion Grandmaster at the Sigeman & Co. International chess tournament.
Twice defending champion Andy Roddick raced to a 6-3, 6-0 win over Ivan Ljubicic on day one of the Kooyong Classic.
That flash of light in the sky followed by thunder can be both mesmerising and scary. Rediff.com presents some amazing pictures of lightning captured by ace lensmen.
Unseeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka knocked out defending champion Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 7-6, 6-4 to reach the Qatar Open final.
The Indo-Czech pair defeated Ivan Ljubicic and Fernando Gonzalez 6-4, 6-2.
