Arsenal’s Streak Is Over at 49
Ruud van Nistelrooy’s 73rd-minute penalty kick and Wayne Rooney’s injury-time goal gave Manchester United a 2-0 victory Sunday at Manchester, England, over league-leading Arsenal, ending the Gunners’ unbeaten league streak at 49 games and moving the Red Devils back into the English Premier League chase.
Van Nistelrooy scored after Rooney was brought down in the penalty box by Sol Campbell, who kicked out his left leg hoping to slow the Manchester United striker.
Three minutes into second-half injury time, Rooney broke in and beat Arsenal goalie Jens Lehmann with a side-footed shot. The goal came on the English striker’s 19th birthday.
Van Nistelrooy missed an injury-time penalty kick in this match last season, which ended in a scoreless tie and prompted a mass brawl.
This time, he made no mistake, beating Lehmann -- who went to his right and watched the ball go in to his left.
Arsenal still leads the Premier League with 25 points, followed by Chelsea (23), Everton (22) and Bolton (18). The win pushed United up to 17 points.
Arsenal’s previous defeat in a league game was a 3-2 loss to Leeds on May 4, 2003.
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Dwayne De Rosario scored from a difficult angle and Craig Waibel scored his first playoff goal to give the San Jose Earthquakes a 2-0 win over the visiting Kansas City Wizards in the first game of a two-game total-goals Major League Soccer series.
In the 40th minute, Earthquake forward Landon Donovan played the ball down the left flank for De Rosario, who dribbled near the goal line and took a left-footed shot between two Wizard defenders.
The ball dropped over the head of Kansas City goalkeeper Bo Oshoniyi and into the lower right corner of the net.
A 52nd-minute corner kick set up the second goal. Jeff Agoos sent the ball to Waibel, who shot it into the net.
Tennis
Marat Safin defeated David Nalbandian, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3, to win the $3-million Madrid Masters in Spain and moved closer to locking up a berth in the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup in Houston next month.
Safin, the No. 3-seeded player, got off to a quick start, breaking Nalbandian’s first two service games and winning the first set in 29 minutes. Safin had at least one ace in each of his own service games in the second set.
Safin had 14 aces in the match, the No. 4-seeded Nalbandian had only one. Nalbandian had not lost a set en route to the finals.
Safin earned $534,000 and captured 100 points, moving him ahead of Britain’s Tim Henman into sixth place in the battle for the eight spots in the Tennis Masters Cup.
Alicia Molik beat Maria Sharapova, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, ending her 12-match winning streak and capturing the Swisscom Challenge title at Zurich, Switzerland.
Sharapova was looking for her third straight title, after winning in Seoul and Toyko, and the seventh of her career. It was her first loss in a final.
It was the third title of Molik’s career, including a victory at Stockholm in August. Molik lost in straight sets to Sharapova at the DFS Classic in Birmingham, England, in June, the only other meeting between the two.
Miscellany
American Bode Miller won the season-opening giant slalom at Soelden, Austria, by more than a second, the initial step toward what he hopes will be the first World Cup overall title for a U.S. skier in more than two decades.
By winning in Soelden for the second straight season, the defending World Cup giant slalom champion helped cap an embarrassing weekend for the Austrians -- who were kept off the podium on home snow in women’s and men’s races.
No American has won the overall title since Phil Mahre in 1983.
Miller reached the bottom of the steep Rettenbach Gletscher course in a two-run time of 2 minutes 16.44 seconds, a whopping 1.17 seconds ahead of Italy’s Massimiliano Blardone.
Austria won last season’s Nations Cup with more points than the three closest countries combined. But it failed to place a skier in the top three in a women’s giant slalom on Saturday, and again in the men’s race on Sunday.
Hammer thrower Adrian Annus of Hungary returned the gold medal he forfeited because of a doping violation at the Athens Olympics, but said he hoped to get it back after an appeal to the sports world’s highest court.
Annus gave the medal to Pal Schmitt, president of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, behind closed doors at a Budapest hotel after refusing to go to the committee’s headquarters.
“I handed the medal over to Pal Schmitt and explained to him the reasons and principles I have for turning to the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” Annus said.
Annus’ spokesman, Gabor T. Pal, said Annus returned the medal because he feared other Hungarian athletes would face sanctions by the International Olympic Committee if he failed to cooperate.
Olympic gold medalist Derek Parra and newcomer Maria Lamb won races at the U.S. Long Track Speedskating Team competition in West Allis, Wis.
Parra breezed to victory in the 5,000-meter race -- the same event he won at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics -- in 6 minutes 43.36 seconds.
Lamb, 18, won the 3,000 in 4:23.69.
