ITALY, MARCH 14 (AGENCIES): Napoli re-turned to its winning ways and rejoined the race for the Scudetto in Serie A thanks to a 3-1 win over Parma. Raffaele Palladino gave the home side a deserved lead in the 29th minute, but Na-poli recovered in the second half with Marek Hamsik securing the equaliser and Ezequiel Lavezzi put Napo-li ahead in the 56th minute.

Daniele Galloppa was given his marching orders for a dangerous foul on Hamsik in the 59th min-ute and Christian Maggio sealed the win for Napoli three minutes from time. As a result, Napoli nar-rowed the gap on league leaders AC Milan to six points, moving back above Udinese into third place, just one point adrift of sec-ond-place Inter Milan.

Palladino had two early chances to put Parma in front, first shooting wide after racing clear of Fabio Santacroce in the second minute and then testing Morgan De Sanctis a minute later. He made it third time lucky in the 29th minute, scoring with on his techni-cally most difficult chance with a volley from 12-yards.

Napoli were unable to find a foothold in the game until the second half, when they emerged with a more positive attitude, and they turned the game on its head in the space of five minutes. Hamsik brought them level

in the 52nd minute when he latched onto Lavezzi’s cross and, despite being in an off-side position, the goal was still allowed to stand.

The roles were reversed four minutes later when Hamsik provided the as-sist for Lavezzi, who broke into the penalty area and sent his low shot into the far corner. Parma’s hopes of re-covering were dealt a blow three minutes later when Galloppa was given a red card for going in with his leg high on Hamsik.

The rest of the game belonged to Napoli, who tempted Parma to attack them and broke in num-bers to try to finish them off. However, they were a bit wasteful with their chanc-es and had to wait until the 87th minute before knock-ing in a third. Ten min-utes earlier, Juan Zuniga and Edinson Cavani both failed to capitalise on a two-against-one situation with the former’s volley deflect-ed wide of the post. Mag-gio then got a lucky break with Massimo Paci’s clear-ance rebounding off Walter Gargano’s back into the Na-poli full-back’s path, and he made no mistake in beating Mirante with another low shot into the far corner.

Napoli’s Ezequiel Lavezzi of Argentina celebrates af-ter scoring a goal during their Serie A soccer match against Parma, at Parma’s Tardini stadium, Italy on March 13. (AP Photo)

The Morung ExpressSPORTSTuesday15 March 201110 Dimapur

Supremo does not have a favourite moment at the clubMILAN, ITALY, MARCH 14 (AGENCIES): AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi is hoping his side can have an-other successful 25 years, as they have had under his presi-dency so far. The Italian giants currently lead the league by five points over rivals Inter, and Berlusconi insists he does not have a favourite moment from his tenure. “I hope that we can have another 25 years similar to what we have had so far,” the supremo was quoted as saying to Corriere Dello Sport. “There are too many beautiful memories in a long history that are in my memory. There isn’t one that stands out.”

AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi targets 25 more years of success

AC Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri, left, with his daugh-ter Valentina, arrives for a party to celebrate Silvio Berlus-coni’s 25 years as president of AC Milan, at a theatre in downtown Milan, Italy on March 13. (AP Photo)

Barbara Berlusconi, daughter of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi arrives for a party to celebrate his father’s 25 years as president of AC Milan, at a theatre in downtown Milan, Italy on March 13. (AP Photo)

AC Milan former player Paolo Maldini, left, arrives with his wife Adriana and his father Cesare for a party to celebrate Silvio Berlusconi’s 25 years as president of AC Milan, at a theatre in downtown Milan, Italy on March 13. (AP Photo)

Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi salutes with the victory sign as he arrives for a party to celebrate his 25 years as president of AC Milan, at a theatre in downtown Milan, Italy on March 13. (AP Photo)

MADRID, MARCH 14 (AGENCIES): Barcelona’s advantage over Real Ma-drid at the top of La Liga was cut to five points when they surrendered the lead and were held to a 1-1 draw in a thrilling clash at battling Sevilla on Sunday.

Pep Guardiola’s side had their usual swagger in the first half at the Sanchez Pizjuan and looked to be cruising when substitute Bojan Krkic, who replaced the injured Pedro, put them ahead in the 30th minute.

However, after Alvaro Negredo held off two de-fenders and crossed for Jesus Navas to nod in the equaliser four minutes after halftime the match burst into life, with end-to-end action and both sides coming desperately close to snatching a winner. Bar-ca midfielder Andres Ini-esta crashed a shot off the crossbar with just under five minutes remaining and had an effort cleared off the line in added time after goalkeeper Victor Valdes had saved brilliantly from Sevilla winger Navas.

Joint La Liga top scor-er Lionel Messi, who had a

scare when he hurt his right knee in a clash with Sevilla keeper Javi Varas but was able to play on, also headed against the crossbar in the first half.

Guardiola said the in-troduction just after the break of Sevilla’s Mali strik-er Frederic Kanoute, who sent Negredo clear in the build-up to the home side’s goal and twice came close to scoring, had made the dif-ference. “They (Sevilla) are a very good team and have been playing at a high level for many years,” the former Barca and Spain midfielder told a news conference.

“Kanoute gave them the continuity that they were missing,” he added. “We got too little return for what we created in the first half.” He said he was “generally happy” with the result af-ter his players’ efforts in the Champions League on Tuesday, when they over-turned a 2-1 first-leg deficit to eliminate English club Arsenal 4-3 on aggregate and reach the last eight.

Real continued their perfect home record on Saturday when Karim Ben-zema netted twice in a 2-0

Barca lead trimmed after thriller in Sevilla

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi from Argentina, left, and Sevilla’s Gary Medel from Chile, right, vie for the ball during their La Liga soccer match at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium on Sunday, March. 13. (AP Photo)

home win over Hercules and with 10 matches re-maining champions Barca have 75 points to Real’s 70. “We still have the upper hand,” Barca midfielder Sergio Busquets said in a television interview.

“We controlled the match well apart from the first 15 minutes of the sec-ond half.” Villarreal missed a chance to trim the gap to third-placed Valencia to one point earlier on Sunday when they conceded a late penalty to gift nine-man Sporting Gijon a 1-1 draw.

Giuseppe Rossi had put Villarreal ahead in the 29th minute at the Madri-gal when the United States-born Italy striker pounced on a keeping error to sweep a loose ball in off the post, his 15th of the campaign.

The club with the dis-tinctive canary-yellow kit were closing in on victory following a run of only one win in seven games when Gijon defender Jose An-gel Valdes earned a second yellow card with 25 min-utes remaining and captain Rafael Sastre was shown a straight red for bringing down Rossi in the 90th.

However, David Bar-ral went down in the pen-alty area in added time and Diego Castro converted the spot kick with an auda-cious chip into the centre of the goal. Villarreal have 51 points from 28 matches, three behind Valencia, who held on to Spain’s third au-tomatic Champions League qualification berth despite crashing to a 4-0 defeat at Real Zaragoza on Satur-day. It was a further blow to Unai Emery’s side follow-ing their elimination from Europe’s elite club com-petition by Schalke 04 on Wednesday.

In other matches on Sunday, European hopefuls Espanyol ended a run of six defeats in their last seven matches when they beat 10-man Deportivo Coruna 2-0 to climb above Athletic Bil-bao into fifth on 43 points. Bilbao can reclaim fifth spot with a win at Getafe in the Monday game (2000).

Malaga secured only their seventh win of the campaign when they won 2-0 at Real Sociedad but re-main bottom of the stand-ings, level on 26 points with Hercules and Almeria.

INDIAN WELLS, MARCH 14 (AGENCIES): Roger Federer and Kim Cli-jsters both faced tough chal-lenges at Indian Wells but not enough to prevent the world’s second-ranked play-ers from moving on. Federer beat Igor Andreev of Rus-sia 7-5, 7-6 (7/4) in a second-round match yesterday, while Clijsters defeated Ita-ly’s Sara Errani 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 in their third round match in the USD 9 million dol-lar WTA and ATP Masters 1000 tournament. “At the moment I feel good. I have had a good last six months, and I guess it’s given me a lot of confidence,” said Federer. Federer, a three-time cham-pion at Indian Wells, said he felt confident in the golf cart heading to the main stadium for his afternoon match.

“But I prefer to be relaxed and then play a good match than being all nervous.” That certainly was the case yes-terday as Federer fired four aces and won 92 percent of this first service points. Fe-derer has won all four career matches against Andreev, dating back to 2004 when they met in the final of a clay court tournament in Swit-zerland. In the tiebreaker yesterday, Federer set up match point by forcing An-dreev hit a backhand long then clinched the win when Andreev pounded a fore-hand into the net. Federer advances to the third round where he will play Argenti-na’s Juan Ignacio Chela.

Clijsters has won Indi-an Wells twice in 2005 and 2003. Against Errani she had six aces but also committed

Lee-Hesh to take on Bopanna-Qureshi in ATP Masters in USINDIAN WELLS, MARCH 14 (PTI): Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi set up a mouth-watering clash against Davis Cup teammate Ro-han Bopanna and his partner Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi after winning their opening round match at the BNP Pa-ribas ATP Masters. The third-seeded In-dian Express beat Si-mon Aspelin and Ju-lian Knowle 7-5, 6-4 in the first round of the USD 3,645,00 hard-court event. Bopanna and Qureshi defeated American Eric Bu-torac and Roger Jean-Julien 7-6(4), 6-4 in their opening round to make the last-16 stage. In the singles event, Somdev Dev-varman, who made his way into the main draw through qualify-ing, will take on Bel-gium’s Xavier Malisse tonight. Malisse had stunned France’s Jo Wilfred Tsonga in his second round clash. If Somdev manages to get past Malisse, he may find himself up against world num-ber one Spaniard Ra-fael Nadal.

Federer, Clijsters advance at Indian Wells

13 double faults in the one hour, 52 minute match.

“It was not my best,” Cli-jsters said. “You have to be on your tippy toes. She moved me around. Today my tippy toes felt like bricks.” Clijsters next faces French 15th seed Marion Bartoli, who beat Andrea Petkovic 6-4, 6-2. “She (Bartoli) is a tricky play-er,” Clijsters said. “She is a girl who hits the ball on the rise and steps into the court.” “I have had some tough battles with her in the past.” Clijsters has reached the final in each of her last five tournaments.

She previously spent 20 weeks as the No. 1 player in the world and has a chance to regain the top spot if she makes it deep into the Indian Wells tournament.

Former world number one Andy Roddick got his tournament off on a success-ful note by beating fellow American James Blake 6-3, 7-5.

“It was tough, but the numbers looked good after-wards,” Roddick said. “I felt

like I was hitting the ball OK, so it worked out.”

Roddick and Federer were among three top 10 men competing on centre court yesterday. World num-ber three Novak Djokovic overpowered Andrey Gol-ubev 6-0, 6-4 in the night match. Djokovic, who has ap-peared unstoppable this sea-son, has won a career-best 15 matches in a row.

In other men’s second round matches, Czech sev-enth seed Tomas Berdych eased past Lukasz Kubot 6-4, 6-1, Austria’s Jurgen Melzer rallied to beat Julien Benne-teau, of France, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 and Canada’s Milos Raonic defeated American Mardy Fish 7-5, 6-4. On the wom-en’s side, fifth seed Franc-esca Schiavone reached the fourth round by beating Alize Cornet of France 6-2, 6-3 and sixth seeded Jelena Jankovic cruised past Julia Georges of Germany 6-2, 6-4.

Former No. 1 Ana Iva-novic breezed past Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-2, 6-2.

Roger Federer, of Switzerland, waves to fans after defeat-ing Igor Andreev, of Russia, 7-5, 7-6 (4) during a match at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 13, in Indian Wells, Calif. (AP Photo)

Napoli comeback over ParmaNapoli hit back from a goal down to win 3-1 at Parma and strength-en their prospects of Champions

League football next season

Reigning Miss Universe, Ximena Navarrete, of Mexico, wears her sash as she attends the Puerto Rico Open PGA golf tour-nament in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico on March 13. (AP Photo)