Brits win around the world – Weekend round-up

A host of different victories at opposite ends of the earth for our plucky Brits abroad today, as Andy Murray sealed arguably the biggest win of his career to date at the Miami Masters, and Jenson Button made it back-to-back victories with an unusual win at the Malaysia GP. Meanwhile in the Grand National Liam Treadwell rode 100-1 outsider Mon Mome to a comfortable win on his debut yesterday, and earlier today Peter Ebdon beat John Higgins 10-8 in the final of the practically ignored China Open. Honorable mention also to Northern Irish golfer Micheal Hoey, who won his first European Tour event in the Estoril Open de Portugal.

Murray triumphed over Novak Djokovic in straight sets (6-2, 7-5) to give further credit to the possibility of overtaking him in the world rankings before the grass court season starts. Trouble is, that plays havoc with my strong desire to see a Murray-Nadal final at Wimbledon, as you’d expect the third and first seeds to play on the same side of the draw. Might be a thunder-stealing semi-final instead…

Button’s win in Malaysia was one of the stranger episodes of Formula 1: the race was ended after 31 laps due to a torrential downpour. After waiting nearly an hour, race director Charlie Whiting decided there was no chance of resuming the race and awarded victory to Button. But, as less than three-quarters of the race had taken place, only half points were awarded. Nick Heidfeld and Timo Glock made up the podium finishes, with Lewis Hamilton picking up a point for his seventh-place finish.

In other news: Manchester United came from behind to beat Aston Villa in one of the season’s most exciting matches so far. With so much riding on the game – renewed pressure to compete with Liverpool after Yossi Benayoun’s last-minute goal against Fulham yesterday, as well as the desire to avoid three consecutive league defeats (something that hasn’t happened since 2001) – United were left in the debt of reserve team sensation Federico “Kiko” Macheda as the 17-year old scored an astonishing injury-time goal to complete a 3-2 win. The Quintuple dreams live on!

World Map of Sport

Check out my new google map showing British sporting acheivements across the globe. It’s just a bit of fun, but I thought it would be interesting to see just how far-flung our sportsmen and women are all year round, not just during major events. More additions will follow soon.

Mid-season comeback

I must apologise. Two weeks without the internet has rendered this blog as relevant as Wales’ Grand Slam hopes. The world of sport has been spinning faster than Monty Panesar in my absence, so I’m going to do a quick rundown of the best and worst before resuming business as usual:

Good:

• English clubs all look set to progress to the next stage of the Champions League. Premiership: best league in Europe.
• Tiger Woods returning victorious to matchplay golf. Not Brit-related but great to see him back on the fairway.
• Formula 1 testing new cars – Ferrari’s in particular looks great. Will be interesting to see how the new technological developments affect racing – more blogging on this in the months to come, I’m sure.
• Manchester United winning the Carling Cup and slimming down the quintuple odds day by day. Just a matter of personal bias, this one.

Bad:

• The attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Not British but momentous, an awful intrusion of terrorism into the world of sport, and a terrible loss of life.
• England failing to understand that there are rules to rugby. Our spectacular lack of discipline - 10 yellows in 4 games – has become a weakness everyone knows they can exploit.
• James DeGale being booed in his first professional bout. Ok, so he didn’t perform at his best, but he won every round. Give the guy a chance, it’s his first pro fight…
• Andy Murray pulling out of the Davis Cup with a virus.

That’s all for now, but rest assured, some genuine blogging is on its way.

Dutch Courage for Murray

It has…ahem…come to my attention (obviously I have my finger on the pulse of all sports) that Andy Murray is getting back on the metaphorical bike tomorrow when he takes on Ivan Ljubicic at the ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.

The draw is such that if he makes it through the first round there’s a great chance of reaching the final, probably via Gasquet in the quarters and Simon/Ancic in the semis. You may be one of the Murray-haters (“He’s such a grumpy scot….He needs to cheer up…Bring back Henman…) but I think it would be fantastic if he managed to bounce straight back with a tournament win, taking some ranking points off third-placed Djokovic who sounded off so strongly against Murray at the Aussie Open.