Relief for Real as Neymar sees red in Barca’s 0-2 defeat to Malaga

MADRID: Neymar was sentoff as Barcelona lost further ground on Real Madrid at the top of La Liga in a shock 2-0 defeat to Malaga.

Real are now three points clear and have a game in hand despite Antoine Griezmann’s classy finish five minutes from time snatching a 1-1 draw for Atletico Madrid earlier at the Santiago Bernabeu.

However, Real can now afford to lose to Barca at home in two weeks’ time and still have a first title in five years in their own hands.

Neymar picked up the first red card of his Barcelona career for two bookable offences as the Catalans were left to rue letting Sandro Ramirez join Malaga for free last summer.

Sandro exposed some awful defending from Jeremy Mathieu to sprint clear on goal and slot past Marc-andre ter Stegen at his near post.

Malaga also had the better chances of the secondhalf filled with controversy as Juanpi shot straight at Ter Stegen when clean through.

Neymar had been shown his first booking for delaying a Malaga free-kick whilst tying his shoelaces and stupidly charged into Diego Llorente 25 minutes from time to see red.

The hosts then had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside when substitute Adalberto Penaranda finished off a flowing counter-attack.

However, Barca were also infuriated with referee Gil Manzano when he somehow awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box when Sergi Roberto had been brought down clearly inside the area.

Malaga finally picked off the 10 men in the final minute when Pablo Fornals unselfishly squared for Jony to smash home from close range.

Barca’s defeat meant Real’s disappointment earlier in the day was short lived.

Pepe’s towering header early in the second half looked to have Real heading five points clear at the top in the Madrid derby.

However, Griezmann rounded Keylor Navas to slot home at the near post five minutes from time. BENGALURU: A clean-sweep could not come through but India stamped their authority over Uzbekistan by winning the Davis Cup tie 4-1 to advance to the World Group play-offs, here on Sunday.

India’s place in the World Group play-offs, to be held in September, was secured once a 3-0 lead was grabbed on Saturday in the Asia/oceania Group I second round tie. The team was eyeing a whitewash but fell short in the second reverse singles’ match.

Ramkumar Ramnathan continued India’s domination of the home tie by outclassing Sanjar Fayziev 6-3 6-2 in just 67 minutes in the first reverse singles at the KSLTA stadium.

Left-handed Prajnesh Gunneswaran, though, had a hard battle at hand against the bigserving 406th ranked Ismailov.

Ismailov negotiated the conditions much better than Fayziev and emerged a deserving 7-5 6-3 winner in the second reverse singles.

Both the players served big but debutant Prajnesh buckled under pressure in crucial moments and that made a difference to the outcome of the match.

Ismailov’s victory meant that India could not force a whitewash. The last time India enjoyed a clean-sweep was in February 2014 when they hammered Chinese Taipei in Indore.however, it was a brilliant start for new captain Mahesh Bhupathi, who has introduced a few rules for the players and has his own style of carrying out business.

Fayziev struggled to adjust to the bounce and speed of the court while Ramkumar turned it into his advantage. He consistently sent down bouncy serves, enticing errors from his opponent.

In his first service game, Fayziev was down 0-40 and was broken when he smashed an overhead volley long and wide on the second breakpoint.

Ramkumar quickly ran away with a 3-0 lead with an easy hold and could have been 4-0 up when Fayziev committed three consecutive double faults but the Uzbek managed to hold.

A backhand passing winner handed Ramkumar a breakpoint in the sixth game but the Uzbek served well to save that.

The Indian also approached the net better in the opening set, easily putting away Fayziev’s feeble returns from the baseline. He served out the set in the ninth game. After squandering two break chances in the opening game of the second set, Ramkumar earned a third with a brilliant lob and converted when Fayziev fluffed a volley. Fayziev served better in the following games and returned well but Ramkumar still managed to get another break in the seventh game to open up a 5-2 lead and served out the match in the next game.

“I played clever today (Sunday). The tie was sealed so I focused on a few things. I did not want to commit a lot of double faults, I wanted to return better. I played smart and all the effort paid off,” Ramkumar said.