It was an action packed weekend for sports fans with some exciting moments and as always unpredictable results. Here are some of the weekends sporting highlights.
Tennis
The Australian open is in full swing with many of the favourites advancing into the quarter finals.
The men’s draw saw a flying Frenchman, Gael Monfils, reach his first Australian Open quarter final with a four set win over Andrey Kuzenesov. Monfils will either face former champions Stan Wawrinka or Milos Raonic in the last eight on Wednesday. Four-time champion Roger Federer was in excellent form despatching David Goffin 6-2 6-1 6-4 to advance to the quarter finals where he will face Tomas Berdych. World number one Djokovic will play in his 27th consecutive Grand Slam quarter final when he faces Kei Nishikori.
At the time of writing, these are the Australian Open Betting Odds:
In the women’s draw two time champion Victoria Azarenka advanced to the quarter finals with a straight set win over unseeded Barbora Strycova. Azarenka is in superb form and is a firm favourite for the title; she has not dropped set on her way to the quarter finals. Azarenka joins seventh seed Angelique Gerber who reach her first Aussie open quarter final with a win over beck, wining 6-4, 6-0.
Cricket
The Proteas are currently in a dominant position heading into Day 4 of the final Test at centurion, leading by 175 runs with nine second innings wickets in hand.
The star of day three was the exciting young fast bowler Kagiso Rabada who took a career best of 7/122 in 26 overs.
Current betting odds are 5/10 for South Africa to win, 28/10 for a Draw and 7/1 for England to win.
New Zealand put together an all-round solid performance as they comfortably won the first one-day international against Pakistan. Trent Bout and Grant Elliot shared seven wickets as Pakistan could only manage 210 all out chasing New Zealand’s 280-6.
The Second match of the series will be played in Napier on Thursday.
Zimbabwe levelled the series 2-2 in the fourth and final T20 international against Bangladesh in Khulna on Friday. Masakadza scored the highest score by a Zimbabwean in a T20 with an impressive 93 of 58 balls, to help his country reach 180-4. In reply Bangladesh could only reach 162 all out due to an inspiring bowling by Madziva who ended with figures of 4-34.
Soccer
10 man Arsenal missed the opportunity to regain top spot on Sunday in the English Premier League as they went down 1-0 to Chelsea. Arsenal are now in 3rd spot on the premier league table behind second placed Manchester City and shock leaders Leicester City.
The Game of the weekend was Liverpool versus Norwich which ended with 5-4 to Liverpool. The nine goal thriller was full of drama, with the leaders changing a number of times. Originally Liverpool lead 1-0 before trailing 3-1 in the 54th minute. Then 3 goals without reply put them 4-3 in the lead with just 15 minutes to go. In injury time it looked like Norwich had secured the draw at 4-4, but in the final few seconds of the match Adam Lallana scored the winning goal to take all three points for Liverpool.
See the highlight below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gNJ3Z_y79o
Golf
Rickie Fowler continued his good form with some superb golf when he won the $2.7 million Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship on Sunday. This is his fourth title in the past 8 months.
As the leader going into the final round, he played solid golf to finish with a tournament total of 16 under par, one shot ahead of Belgian, Thomas Peters.
