MADRID: Atletico Madrid set a club all-time record of 14 straight victories with a 1-0 win over Osasuna on Sunday and went top of the Spanish league at the halfway stage.
Julián Álvarez scored in the 55th minute at the Metropolitano stadium to give Atletico the milestone victory and a one-point lead over second-place Real Madrid. Diego Simeone’s team has a six-point gap to third-place Barcelona.
Madrid and Barcelona play each other in the Spanish Super Cup final in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later Sunday. A 4-0 defeat to Barcelona will be on Madrid’s mind ahead of the second clasico of the season.
Atletico has won all of its matches across all competitions since October. Its last setback was a 1-0 loss at Real Betis in the Spanish league on Oct. 27. Eight of the victories have come in the league.
“It’s an important streak to show the growth of this club,” Simeone said. “We have been working really hard.”
It was the seventh consecutive league game without a win for Osasuna, which is in 11th place.
Also Sunday, 15th-place Getafe won 2-1 at 14th-place Las Palmas.
Atletico Madrid wins record 14th game in a row to lead Spanish league at halfway stage
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Atletico Madrid wins record 14th game in a row to lead Spanish league at halfway stage
- Atletico has won all of its matches across all competitions since October
Jannik Sinner beats great rival Carlos Alcaraz to retain ATP Finals title
- Italian Sinner brought the house down in Turin by winning the championship match tennis fans wanted to see
TURIN: Jannik Sinner retained the ATP Finals title on Sunday after beating Carlos Alcaraz 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 and ending a turbulent season with victory over his great rival.
Italian Sinner brought the house down in Turin by winning the championship match tennis fans wanted to see, adding the prestigious year-ending tournament to the Australian Open and a landmark triumph at Wimbledon this season.
The 24-year-old also bounced back from a three-month ban which chopped out a large chunk of his season despite the World Anti-Doping Agency accepting that the Italian was accidentally contaminated with banned substance clostebol last year.
Sinner has now won 31 straight matches on indoor hard courts, a run which stretches back to the 2023 championship match at Turin’s Inalpi Arena which he lost to Novak Djokovic.
Four more wins on indoor hard courts would draw him level with Djokovic’s tally set between 2012 and 2015 — the second-highest in the Open era but some way behind John McEnroe’s record of 47.
He hasn’t dropped a set at the Finals since losing that final to the Serb two years ago, and he was imperious over the week in northern Italy.
While both Sinner and Alcaraz breezed into the final, the championship game was an attritional affair, with each player rock-solid on serve until an enthralling tie-break at the end of the first set.
Sinner took the lead thanks to a brilliant lob which set up set point, and he made no mistake with a missile of a serve which Alcaraz could only limply send wide.
But Sinner immediately handed Alcaraz the advantage in the second set with two double-faults which helped hand his opponent a break of serve at the start of the frame.
Sinner hadn’t dropped a service game in the whole tournament up to that point but he broke back in game six to put the crowd on their feet.
And Sinner collapsed to the ground in joy when Alcaraz sent a backhand wide on the first championship point, before heading into the stands to share his joy with his family amid the roars of the crowd.
