Cristiano Ronaldo shows no signs of flagging as he approaches his mid-30s but there are plenty of other worries for a team with an ageing central defence and a number of players struggling for form.
Stanislas Wawrinka returned to form with a 6-1, 6-1 thrashing of Tomas Berdych at the ATP World Tour Finals on Monday.
A round-up of matches played in the Serie A and French Ligue 1 on Sunday
Manchester United eased the pressure on manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with a 3-1 win at Everton in the Premier League on Saturday with Bruno Fernandes scoring twice and Edinson Cavani grabbing his first for the club.
Manchester United and Chelsea secured places in the Champions League with wins on the final day of the Premier League season while Watford and Bournemouth were relegated along with bottom club Norwich City.
Indian driver Karun Chandhok will miss Sunday's Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix after also being dropped by Hispania for last weekend's race in Germany.
Five Brazilian athletes training in Germany for this month's world championships have failed out of competition doping tests and will return home, the Brazilian Athletics Confederation (CBAt) has said.
Bayern Munich moved closer to a record-extending 30th league title after their Polish striker Robert Lewandowski ended a personal jinx in a 5-0 drubbing of struggling Fortuna Duesseldorf in the Bundesliga on Saturday. The result left leaders Bayern, who are chasing an eighth successive league title, top of the standings on 67 points from 29 games, 10 ahead of closest rivals Borussia Dortmund who visit bottom team Paderborn on Sunday.
The forward was again the stand-out Brazil player and he coolly side-footed home his 60th international goal in the 76th minute after Diego Laxalt brought down Danilo, although Uruguay claimed there was a handball in the build-up.
Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi reached their third Tour level final of the season after clinching a three-set thriller against Leos Friedl of Italy and Serbian Dusan Vemic in Nice, France.
'The fatal mistake for the USSR was the invasion of Afghanistan.' 'Quite possibly the fatal mistake for the Chinese empire is the assault on Ladakh,' observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
Formula One driver Karun Chandhok had a spring in his step at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday after recovering from a bout of food poisoning that laid him low earlier in the week.
Cristiano Ronaldo continued from where he left off in the early stages of the UEFA Champions League, adding to his goal tally as Real Madrid beat AS Roma 2-0 in their round of 16, first leg tie on Wednesday.
The 31-year-old is still recovering from the knee injury which forced him to limp out of the Euro 2016 final against France in the first half, coach Fernando Santos said.
India's Sania Mirza and her partner Cara Black of Zimbabwe could not make it to the US Open women's doubles finals after going down in straight sets to Swiss-Italian pair of Martina Hingis and Flavia Pennetta at the Flushing Meadows.
India's Sania Mirza put herself in contention for a seventh Grand Slam title as she breezed into the Australian Open mixed doubles final with Ivan Dodig, beating local favourites Samantha Stosur and Sam Groth in Melbourne on Friday.
Images from the UEFA Champions League matches played on Tuesday night.
Premier League-based trio Diego Costa, Juan Mata and Santi Cazorla were among a high-profile list of absentees when Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque named his provisional 25-man squad for Euro 2016 on Tuesday. Costa injured his hamstring against Liverpool in Chelsea's penultimate game of the season. Atletico Madrid striker Fernando Torres was also absent from the squad despite his improved form towards the end of the season, as were Arsenal midfielder Cazorla and Valencia forward Paco Alcacer, Spain's top scorer in their qualifying campaign.
As the curtains fall on another year, Rediff.com brings you all the action from the sports field that defined 2019.
Karun Chandhok is in the final stages of talks with Campos Meta Formula One team for a drive in the 2010 season, his manager said on Friday. Spain's Campos, one of four new teams in an expanded F1 grid in the new season, have so far named only one driver, Brazilian Bruno Senna, nephew of late F1 world champion Ayrton Senna and Chandhok's former GP2 team mate.
Barcelona's inconsistency over the season had cost them the La Liga title, coach Luis Enrique has said.
Images from the EPL matches played on Sunday
Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna got past Bruno Soares and Daniela Hantuchova in the mixed-doubled match as Indian Aces edged past Singapore Slammers in the UAE leg of the International Premier Tennis League on Thursday.
Others named in the chargesheet include alleged European middlemen in the deal, Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Saturday.
Juventus's hopes of reaching the Champions League last eight suffered a blow when the two-times European Cup winners slumped to a 1-0 defeat in their last-16 first leg at Olympique Lyonnais on Wednesday. Manchester City finally produced a Champions League performance worthy of their status as one of European football's elite clubs by beating Real Madrid 2-1 away in Wednesday's last-16 first leg after pulling off a stunning late fightback.
Bruno Senna has carried a burden of expectation ever since he first stepped into a racing car and it will only grow heavier when he makes his Formula One debut next year.
Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi on Saturday missed out on their second ATP Tour title of the season as they lost the final of the Nice event in France despite a rollicking start. Bopanna and Qureshi had grabbed a one-set lead in quick time but could not survive the counter-attack of Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares to lose 6-1, 3-6, 5-10 in one hour and 13 minutes.
When is comes to Indian tennis, it has to be the year of Sania Mirza! The Hyderabadi ace set aside all controversies and soared. Having overcome career-threatening injuries she was back to winning ways. Sania won her third mixed doubles Grand Slam title and wrapped up a dream season with the year-end finale trophy even as India's established male tennis players found the going tough in 2014.
Reuben NV shared these pictures of floats from Panjim.
Arsenal right back Hector Bellerin will be in Spain's Euro 2016 squad, the country's football federation said on Tuesday. The 21-year-old Bellerin and the other 18 players named to face South Korea in a friendly in Wals-Siezenheim, Austria on Wednesday, have been guaranteed spots in the European Championship squad. Bellerin was included after Real Madrid right back Dani Carvajal sustained a leg muscle injury in Saturday's Champions League final victory over Atletico Madrid. The Real Madrid and Atletico players in the squad will be named later on Tuesday when Spain coach Vicente del Bosque announces his final list.
VfB Stuttgart continued their unbeaten run under new coach Thomas Schneider on Friday, climbing to sixth with a 1-1 home draw against Nuremberg who are still looking for their first Bundesliga win of the season.
It was mixed fortunes for Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna in the men's doubles at the Wimbledon on Monday.
Leander Paes and Martina Hingis eased into the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals of the Wimbledon championships but it was curtains for Rohan Bopanna and his Spanish partner Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
Genoa ended a seven-match run without a Serie A victory by winning 1-0 at Lazio on Monday after the hosts had goalkeeper Federico Marchetti sent off in the first half.
Leander Paes kept the Indian challenge alive at the French Open. Partnering Lukas Dlouhy, he advanced to the men's doubles semi-finals on Monday after a thwarting a late challenge from fifth seeds Bruno Soares of Brazil and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe. The Indo-Czech duo won 6-2, 7-6(5) to set up a meeting with either top seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada/Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia or Russians Igor Kunitsyn/Dmitry Tursunov in the semi-finals.
Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujrathi came good when it mattered most and defeated Marius Monalache of Romania to emerge as the best performing Indian in the Cappelle La Grande International Chess tournament that concluded in Cappelle La Grande, France.
Real Madrid on top because of performances, not referees, says coach Zidane.
Honda's chief executive apologised to British driver Jenson Button after Japan's number two carmaker pulled the plug on its Formula One team on Friday. "It's a real shame and I feel deeply sorry for Jenson Button," the CEO of Honda Motor Co Takeo Fukui told a news conference. 'We had no choice in the current financial conditions.'
The apology, tendered by Right Reverend J Jon Bruno, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is arguably the first of its kind by a major Christian congregation, and was issued 'for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination by Christians, including attempts to convert them.'
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances