In India: The eyes of the nation turn toward Hyderabadthis evening for the Cricket finals, when the Mumbai Indians meet the RisingPune Supergiant, the Indian Premier League's two best teams, in an IPL GrandFinal showdown fit for the ages. Bombayis facing a jinx today: not since Rajasthan Royals in 2008, hasthe team at the top of the standings at season's end been crowned champions. With playoffs this week, both teams must feelsome fatigue, but no more, perhaps, than players of test cricket would suffer,in their five day affairs. Mumbai beatCalcutta in Bangalore on Friday, but have lost three times to the Rising PuneSupergiant this season. Pune started theseason terribly, | | | | with a 1-3 record, but roared back to the top of theirdivision. Unfortunately, two of their bestplayers, Ben Stokes and Imran Tahir,have departed to prepare for the upcoming England-South Africa one-dayinternational series. Mumbaihave the chance to become the first team to win the IPL three times since itsinception, but there is that jinx, isn't there? and this one not just fromPokemon. Bombay last won against theRising Pune last season. Rising Pune havekept a lid on Mumbai's power players; Rohit and Kieron Pollard average 20.66and 14.33 against them this season. Thetop team in the standings may not prevail, again this year, and the premiersmay very well be the Rising Pune Supergiant at the end of the evening. The proverbialsoccer ball rubber is to hit the road today in many European countries, in thislast weekend of the regular season. Thegames are not really the prime interest today, as sporting competitions. Truly,the matchups are rather uninteresting. The true interest of the day lies in the great suspense over the entirecontinent remains with the standings, who will finish first? The other question being asked this last dayof competition is who will beat relegation? Real Madrid travel to Malaga knowing they need just a point to win LaLiga, but chastened with a bit of history. Twenty-four years ago, they flew toTenerife with the title in their hands, only to bottle it and hand the crown toBarcelona. What if it happens again? This is the question that all of Spain asks, especially fans of the royals. At8 p.m., local time, Barcelona, who has been on fire in recent weeks, face Eibar at the Camp Nou. At the same time, Madrid travel to Malaganeeding just a tie, a single point, towin the league for the first time in five years. They have won five straightgames since losing to Barcelona last month. Four goals against Sevilla and four more against Celta Vigo brought themto this point. Cristiano Ronaldo, havingmissed intermittent games this season, is rested and ready, and tan, as always. They are close now, playing this mediocreteam, but they are filled with apprehension, could they jinx it? Even thefamous Zinedine Zidane, Real Madrid coach refuses to speak of the game as adone deal: "It's not done," he has warned his team, and thepublic. Malaga, of course, withpractically the rest of the Castilian speaking world, despises Barcelona, so there would be somecomfort in not winning or in a draw. TheMalaga coach's son plays for Eibar, so will be playing his heart out againstBarcelona, and meanwhile, Michael Gonzalez, who has appeared in these pages,was a member of the Real Madrid team which lost at Tenerife. Certainly, the games themselves are not ofprime interest today... but oh the drama. In Italy, the ratios in the standingshave been rather stagnant in recent weeks. As this weekend started, Juventus remained four points ahead of Roma,who remained one point ahead of Napoli, with Lazio ten points behind them. Juventus comes off a Coppa Italia victory,Wednesday, against Lazio, having reached that honor through a kind of internalseason tournament. Still the seasoncontinues today, with final games, wrapping up everything tomorrow. Today's competitions became more interesting as a result of Roma's convincing 5-3win over Chievo last night, to bring them within a point of Juve in thestandings. The game was uninteresting,with Chievo ahead 1-0 for a good part of it, until the goal makers got busy andturned mediocre into thrilling. Napolipulled within two points of Juve, and one of Roma, with their victory overFiorentina last night 4-1. Fiorentina,at seventh place, had slim hopes themselves, of making next year's Europaleague, but.... So, today, all eyes looktoward Juventus, who, this afternoon at 3, face Crotone, who in turn facepossible relegation. Crotone is a newly promotedteam who stumbled greatly early in the season, but which has since then beenpicking up points. Juventus, with a win,will go out on top of the Serie A, and win a place of respect throughoutEurope. Crotone, with a few points, willavoid going down into relegation along with Palermo and Pescara, giving thatplace of dubious honor to Genoa or Empoli, who are just ahead of them in thestandings. Oh the drama. In the Bundesliga (yawn) Bayern Monaco haswon in the standings. How many weeks agowas that? Yesterday, in final daycompetitions, Bayern Monaco was celebrating a historic fifth Bundesligatitle in succession. They bid farewellto retiring legends Philipp Lahm and Xabi Alonso (featured in these pages) witha 4-1 win over Freiburg. Hamburg SV beatVFL Wolfsburg 2-1 to avoid relegation, this season. Yeah Hamburg. That result means Wolfsburg faces a two-leg playoff against thethird-place finisher in the second division -- all but certain to be EintrachtBraunschweig -- to determine which side plays in the Bundesliga next season,and which team ends up in second division. In England, the real battle of the day is for fourth place in the standings,which Arsenal has always felt was theirs by right. Fourth place has a bid to next year'sChampion's League competition. Liverpoolmay play the spoiler this year, though, and they desperately want fourthplace... InRome, in International Tennis: Novak Djokovic, in what he described as his "bestperformance of the year" overcame having to play twice in a day beforecruising into his eighth final of the Rome Masters with a ruthless 6-1, 6-0 winover Dominic Thiem on Saturday. Thiemhad knocked Rafael Nadal out in the quarter-finals, so such dominance came as acomplete surprise. Djokovic, a four-timechampion in Rome, was forced to finish his quarter-final over Juan Martin delPotro earlier in the day after their match was rained off late on Friday. Sunday, he will play in the final matchagainst Germany’s rising star Alexander Zverev. Zverev, 20, became the youngest player in a decade to reach a Mastersfinal when he clinched a gutsy 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 win over big-serving American JohnIsner. A 30 year old Serbian, Djokovicwas swept aside by Nadal in the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters, but remainsunbeaten in Rome semi-finals (8-0) and took his tournament record to 41-6.Watch for an exciting final match Sunday! -- Posted By Rex to SR at 5/21/2017 04:08:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
