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France’s Fed Cup player Caroline Garcia celebrates after winning a point against Italian Fed Cup player Sara Errani during the first round of the Fed Cup World Group on Feb 6, 2016 in Marseille, southern

France. (AFP)

Sports ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2016 44

Latest sports scores at — http://sports.arabtimesonline.com

Foxes underline title credentialsCity upset

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Feb 6, (AFP): Robert Huth scored twice as Leicester City produced an astonishing demonstration of their Premier League title credentials by winning 3-1 at closest rivals Manchester City on Saturday.

Huth broke the deadlock in the third minute from a Riyad Mahrez

free-kick and after Mahrez had net-ted a brilliant solo goal early in the first half, the Ger-man centre-back headed in his sec-ond goal from a corner on the hour.

Sergio Aguero re-plied for City with a glancing header in

the 87th minute — his seventh goal in five games — but a rain-lashed day at the Etihad Stadium belonged to Leicester.

It was the most sensational win to date of their fairytale 12-month rise from the bottom to the top of the table and left Claudio Ranieri’s side 5 points clear of second-place Spurs.

Leicester have now won three league games in a row and remain on course for the most improbable English title triumph since promoted Nottingham Forest won the league in 1977-78.

City, playing at home for the first time since Pep Guardiola was announced as the successor to manager Manuel Pel-legrini, have now lost six league games this season — as many as when they last won the league in 2014.

With this stunning result, any doubts about Leicester’s ability to pull off the most unlikely title victory in Premier League his-tory were removed once and for all.

Furthermore, the four-goal swing in

Leicester City’s English striker Jamie Vardy (left), vies with Manchester City’s Argentinian defender Nicolas Otamendi during the English Premier League football match between Manchester City and Leices-ter City at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, north west England, on Feb 6. (AFP)

goal difference meant that as well as a six-point lead over City, Leicester’s goal difference of +20 is now just one goal worse than their chief rivals’.

Most had predicted an exciting meet-ing between two sides who believe that attack is the best form of defence and the opening three minutes did not dis-appoint.

Leicester shot into the lead in dramatic fashion from a free-kick conceded when Aleksandar Kolarov felled Mahrez, who took the set-piece himself.

After much jockeying for position in the area, City did a poor job of marking and Huth was able to ghost ahead of Mar-tin Demichelis, scoring from six yards with a shot that deflected in off the unfor-

tunate home defender.The goal allowed Leicester to play on

the counter-attack — their preferred mo-dus operandi — and City mustered just one shot on target in the first half, with Kasper Schmeichel smothering a shot from Aguero.

City goalkeeper Joe Hart had to rush out and save from Jamie Vardy and Dan-

ny Drinkwater, but Leicester continued to probe and three minutes into the second half they doubled their lead.

N’Golo Kante won the ball inside his own half and advanced before find-ing Mahrez, who neatly evaded Pablo Zabaleta’s vain sliding effort to inter-cept.

There was still much for Leicester’s

in-form winger to do, buy he did it, out-foxing Demichelis with a step-over and rifling an unstoppable right-foot shot past Hart from 15 yards.

It was a stunning development and one which prompted Pellegrini to throw on Fernando and Kelechi Iheanacho.

Results /Standings Page 43

Germany back on track, Czech, Romania in dogfi ght

Record-breaking Dutch stun Russia in Fed CupPARIS, Feb 6, (AFP): The Nether-lands opened-up a shock 2-0 lead over Russia in the Fed Cup on Sat-urday on the back of a four-hour win for Richel Hogenkamp against Svet-lana Kuznetsova in the tournament’s longest ever singles rubber.

Hogenkamp, the world num-ber 141, survived a match point to win 7-6 (7/4), 5-7, 10-8 in Moscow against world number 17 Kuznetso-va, a former two-time Grand Slam champion.

At four hours, the match was the longest singles rubber in Fed Cup history, beating the previous best set in 2005, when Vilmarie Castellvi of Puerto Rico beat Aleksandra Woz-niak of Canada in three hours and 49 minutes.

Kiki Bertens, ranked 106, earlier put her country 1-0 up beating 31st-

ranked Ekaterina Makarova 6-3, 6-4.“I’m very happy that I’m the one

who could make it 2-0 today,” said Hogenkamp.

“And of course it feels great to win the longest match in Fed Cup history.

“I was trying to play my own game and it worked well. It’s a good score after the first day but in Fed Cup you still need to win three rubbers so we’re not there yet.”

Four-time champions Russia now face a dilemma over whether or not to name Maria Sharapova in Sunday’s reverse singles despite the world number six insisting a forearm injury would restrict her to the doubles clash which will con-clude the tie.

Defending champions the Czech Republic were also in a dogfight in

Cluj where they ended the day at 1-1 against Romania.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, the world number nine, hit 46 unforced errors in her 6-3, 6-4 loss to Monica Niculescu, the 37th-ranked player.

Earlier, Karolina Pliskova, one of the stars of the Czechs’ 2015 final win against Russia, stunned world number three Simona Halep 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-2.

It was 23-year-old Pliskova’s first win over Halep in four meetings.

Australian Open champion and world number two Angelique Ker-ber got Germany’s first round match against Switzerland back on track in Leipzig with a 6-1, 6-3 win over

Timea Bacsinszky.“I felt the tiredness in the second

set, but the spectators helped carry me through,” said Kerber, who was playing her first match since stunning Serena Williams in the Australian Open final last weekend.

The Swiss had taken the lead in the tie when 18-year-old Belinda Bencic, the world number 11, swept past An-drea Petkovic, 6-3, 6-4.

In Marseille, France and Italy were locked at 1-1.

Camila Giorgi defeated Kristina Mladenovic 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 before Car-oline Garcia levelled the tie by see-ing of former French Open runner-up Sara Errani 6-3, 7-5.

Italy, who have been champions four times since 2006, are bidding to reach the semi-finals for the seventh time in eight years.

Title challenge strengthened

Spurs pip Watford tomove above Man CityLONDON, Feb 6, (AFP): Tottenham Hotspur strengthened their Premier League title challenge as Kieran Trip-pier’s goal moved Mauricio Pochettino’s side up to second place following a 1-0 victory over Watford on Saturday.

The north London club took full ad-vantage of Manchester City’s 3-1 loss to Leicester City earlier in the day to move above Manuel Pellegrini’s side and to within five points of leaders Leicester.

Having been on the fringes of the title race for much of the season, Spurs are now reinforcing their status as one of the main contenders to be crowned champi-ons in May.

The margin of victory should have been much more comfortable, with Po-chettino’s side dominant for all but the opening moments of the game.

But a string of missed opportunities, together with a fine display from Watford goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes, meant that they had to rely on Trippier’s 64th-min-ute tap-in to claim all three points.

It was the right-back’s first goal for the club on only his fourth league start since making a £3.5 million ($5.1 million, 4.5 mil-lion euros) switch from Burnley last June.

There were few positives for Watford manager Quique Sanchez Flores, whose side failed to register a single effort on target.

Spurs initially appeared to be missing the creative influence of Dele Alli in mid-field, with the youngster named among the substitutes after being forced out of last weekend’s win at Norwich City with illness.

The visitors, though, had few options going forward and were unable to relieve the gradual build-up of Spurs pressure af-ter a dour opening 25 minutes.

Pochettino allowed his three attacking midfielders -- Nacer Chadli, Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen -- to roam and with full-backs Trippier and Ben Davies get-ting forward well, Watford began to ap-pear vulnerable.

Trippier provided a succession of good crosses from the right and Chadli should have done much better then direct his header against Watford defender Allan Nyom after being picked out by the right-back.

Moments later Nyom again intervened, this time to deflect Davies’s shot away to safety.

When Chadli again miscued a header, this time from Lamela’s free-kick, it ap-peared only a matter of time before Spurs took the lead.

Watford’s sole response during the first half came from Almen Abdi, who floated a chip onto the roof of the net after Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris had rushed from his line.

But there were few signs of the confi-dence that has made Flores’s side one of the unexpected successes of this season.

And it was no surprise when the man-ager responded to his side’s first-half display by making a double substitu-tion, withdrawing the ineffectual Abdi and Mario Suarez and introducing Valon Behrami and Troy Deeney.

Tottenham’s Kevin Wimmer (left), com-petes for the ball with Watford’s Odion Ighalo during the English Premier League soccer match between Totten-ham Hotspur and Watford at White Hart

Lane in London, on Feb 6. (AP)

TENNIS

SOCCER

Bournemouth vs Arsenal beIN SPORTS 2HD, 11HD

16:30 local

Chelsea vs United beIN SPORTS 2HD, 11HD19:00 local

Huth