Barcelona's Ronaldinho (l) vies with Athletic's Josu Sarriegi during their Spanish League football match at the Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona on Sunday.

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 26--Barcelona opened up a two-point gap at the top of La Liga as Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o renewed their partnership in style against Athletic Bilbao, reported Fifa.com.
In the Premiership, Manchester United increased their lead over Chelsea to nine points, while Inter Milan cruised to their 17th successive Serie A victory. The top three dropped points in Germany, allowing Bayern Munich to make ground, and Ligue 1 leaders Lyon scored two late goals to claim a 3-3 draw against Sochaux.
La Liga: Eto’o returns in style Barcelona erased the memory of recent losses to Valencia and Liverpool byÊoverwhelming Athletic Bilbao at the Camp Nou. With Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o in resplendent form, the Blaugrana scored three times without reply to open up a two-point lead at the summit of La Liga. Second-placed Sevilla were unable to keep pace with Barcelona, Getafe holding them to a goalless stalemate, and fellow title contendersÊValencia also stumbled, conceding a last-gasp goal to draw 1-1 with Gimnastic.
On Saturday,ÊAtletico and Real shared the spoilsÊin the Madrid derby, Gonzalo Higuain cancelling out Fernando Torres’ opener for the hosts. Argentine teenager Sergio Aguero almost won it for Atletico following an imaginative dribble, but Iker Casillas produced a fine save to earn ten-man Real a point.
Toulouse moved into the top three for the first time this season with their biggest ever Ligue 1 success over Marseille, 3-0 on home soil. Johan Elmander was the standout performer for Elie Baup’s team, scoring twice and having a hand in the Achille Emana’s goal. L’OM drop to eight position, three points shy of Toulouse, who trail second-placed Lens by four points.
Sochaux missed the chance to hurdle Toulouse into third after conceding two late goalsÊaway at runaway leaders Lyon. Sebastien Grax’s 85th minute volley put the visitors 3-1 up, but Sylvain Wiltord halved the deficit on 89 minutes, before Juninho PernambucanoÊstole les Gones a point with a penalty deep into injury time.

Juan Monaco celebrates after defeating Italian Alessio Di Mauro in ATP Open final match at the Lawn Tennis club in Buenos Aires on Sunday.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Feb. 26--Argentine Juan Monaco won his first ATP title by trouncing Alessio Di Mauro of Italy 6-1, 6-2 Sunday, delighting a capacity crowd on the dusty outdoor clay at the Copa Telmex.
According to AP, the 22-year-old Monaco, a fifth-year pro whose only other final appearance came at Casablanca in 2005, finished off the victory in 63 minutes.
“This is a title nobody can take away from me. It cost me so much to win this championship,“ Monaco told a crowd of more than 5,000 at the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club.
“This is the fulfillment of a dream,“ The Italian seemed to wilt under southern hemisphere summer and temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (90 Fahrenheit).
Monaco won his first two service games at love and broke Di Mauro to lead 3-0, capitalizing on unforced errors by the Italian who was playing in his first ATP final. Another break put Monaco ahead 5-1 and he completed the first set in 25 minutes.
Monaco broke Di Mauro to open the second set and the Italian, showing the first signs of distress in the mid-afternoon heat, left the court to receive medical attention. The Italian complained of cramps in the right calf and took a five-minute delay. He trotted back onto the court and play after that was more even. However, Di Mauro returned to his unforced errors and Monaco broke again for a 5-2 lead, and then clinched the match on serve.
After victory, Monaco rushed up to the stands to salute his family. Having entered the week ranked 66th by the ATP Tour, he vowed to continue his momentum.
“I’m not going to be satisfied to just rest on my accomplishments here,“ he said. “I want to win more titles, if that’s possible and I hope I can someday repeat here.“ Di Mauro said the weeklong tournament in the South American heat finally took its toll Sunday, and felt he strained a leg muscle during the second set.
“After I resumed playing the second set, it didn’t bother me the rest of the match,“ she said. “Monaco was just more aggressive and he bothered me a lot on his service.“ In the doubles final, the fourth-seeded Martin Garcia and Sebastian Prieto earned a second title for Argentina, beating Spaniards Alberto Montanes and Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo, 6-1, 6-2.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 26--Al Ansar kept their remarkable win streak in the Lebanon League intact after a hardfought 4-2 victory over basement dwellers Salam Zhagarta in the ninth round recently, reported AFC.
Malik Hasoon scored a brace while Ahmad Mnajid and Hamzeh Al Massri made individual contributions in the big win which took Al Ansar to 27 points.
Al Safa remained second on 19 points after Amer Khan scored the only goal in their win over Trables Sports Club.
AFC Cup team Al Nejmeh were held scoreless by Al Ahed while Al Hikma beat Al Mabarrah 2-1.
In other games, Al Ahli Saida thrashed Al Rayyan 3-0 and Tadamoun Sour held Shabab Sahel to a goalless draw despite being down to 10 men.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 26--The AFC Executive Committee has dismissed the reinstatement appeal of Esteqlal Tehran of Iran who were disqualified from participating in the 2007 edition of the AFC Champions League two weeks ago.
Esteqlal Tehran put in an appeal last Monday but the AFC Executive Committee turned it down today after a thorough review and extensive deliberations on the matter.
The Iran Pro League defending champions were disqualified from the AFC Champions League on February 16 for failing to submit their preliminary player registration forms by the February 11, 2007, deadline.
AFC disqualified the club after invoking Article 30 (F) (i) of the competition regulations which states that: “Each club entering the competition shall send to the AFC Secretariat a squad list of no more than thirty (30) players for the Competition by 11 February, 2007. Any Club that does not submit their registration by the registration deadline shall be automatically disqualified from the Competition. In this situation, the team will be deemed to have lost all their matches.“
The dismissal of Esteqlal’s appeal means there will be only three teams-- Pakhtakor (Uzbekistan), Kuwait Sports Club (Kuwait) and Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia); in Group B while Sepahan, who have been drawn in Group D with Al Ain (UAE), Al Ittihad (Syria) and Al Shabab (Saudi Arabia), carry Iran’s hopes in the continental showpiece as the sole representatives.

LONG BEACH, USA, Feb. 26--Levi Leipheimer won the Amgen Tour of California on Sunday having never trailed in the eight-day race, according to AP.
Leipheimer, a three-time top-10 Tour de France finisher, completed 1,028-kilometer (639.2-mile) race with a 21-second advantage over Jens Voigt of Germany.
The Discovery Channel rider took the lead with a 1-second win in the prologue Feb. 18 in San Francisco. He maintained a lead of no more than three seconds until he dominated the individual time trial fifth stage last Friday in Solvang.
His teammate, Jason McCartney, was third overall, 54 seconds back.
Cuba’s Ivan Dominguez won the final stage, surging in the final 25 meters to edge Australia’s Graeme Brown by less than half a tire length in the 124.7-kilometer (77.5-mile) , seventh-stage circuit race in 2 hours, 39 minutes and 28 seconds.
Gerald Ciolek of Germany was third in the same time as the top two finishers.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Feb. 26--Ten-man Ajax was held to a 1-1 draw by AZ Alkmaar on Sunday in the Dutch league after Edgar Davids was sent off in the 45th minute, said AP.
Kenneth Perez scored a close-range goal to give Ajax the lead in the 65th, but substitute Maarten Martens leveled for AZ in the 79th. PSV Eindhoven, which beat FC Groningen 1-0 Saturday, leads the league with 63 points, seven more than Ajax. AZ is third with 55 points.
Also, Spanish goalkeeper Sergio Sanchez made his debut for last-place ADO The Hague in a 3-3 draw against Feyenoord. Angelos Charisteas scored two for Feyenoord and Rick Hoogendorp got two for ADO. Joonas Kolkka put Feyenoord ahead in the 19th before Hoogendorp equalized in the 40th. Charisteas made it 2-1 to Feyenoord in the 55th, but ADO then took a 3-2 lead with a penalty from Hoogendorp in the 62nd and a goal from Laurent Delorge in the 66th.
Charisteas scored his second goal in the 73rd to earn a point for Feyenoord, which is winless at ADO in 16 years.
Jan Vertonghen, Hans van der Haar and Tim Janssen each scored to give RKC Waalwijk a 3-1 victory over 10-man Vitesse Arnhem. Vitesse’s Danko Lazovic scored his 16th goal of the season with a 20th-minute penalty before Anduele Pryor was red-carded in the 60th for his second offense.
Alex scored a goal in the 85th as PSV Eindhoven beat FC Groningen 1-0 on Saturday and Andres Oper scored his eighth goal of the season to lead Roda JC over SC Heerenveen 1-0.
Also this weekend, it was: FC Utrecht 3, NEC Nijmegen 0; Sparta Rotterdam 0, Heracles Almelo 0; FC Twente 0, Willem II 0; and Excelsior Rotterdam 0, NAC Breda 2.

Austria's Mario Matt competes in the men's slalom of the Alpine skiing World Cup, on Sunday.

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany, Feb. 26--World Champion Mario Matt of Austria took a comfortable lead into the second run of a men’s World Cup slalom Sunday.
According to AP, Matt finished the 56-gate first run in 46.15 seconds to lead Felix Neureuther of Germany by more than half a second, said AP.
Neureuther clocked 46.69 on the Gudiberg hill, where his father Christian was the last German to win a World Cup slalom here 33 years ago.
Kalle Palander of Finland was third in 46.92. Manfred Moelgg of Italy, who won the silver medal behind Matt at the World Championship in Are, Sweden, earlier this month, was fourth in 46.95. Bronze medalist Jean-Baptiste Grange of France was eighth in 47.71.
Among the skiers who failed to finish the first run were Bode Miller and Jimmy Cochran of the United States and Austrians Manfred Pranger and Rainer Schoenfelder.
The last time this southern German resort hosted a World Cup slalom race was 12 years ago when the winner was Alberto Tomba.

CANCUN, Mexico, Feb. 26--US veteran Fred Funk overcame nagging back pain to defeat Argentina’s Jose Coceres on the second playoff hole here Sunday to win the 3.5 million-dollar PGA Mayakoba Classic, said AFP.
Funk won with a six-foot birdie putt at the par-three 10th hole. He and Coceres each finished 72 holes on 14-under par 266, one stroke ahead of Australian Peter Lonard and two better than American Ryan Armour.
By taking the 630,000-dollar top prize at the first US PGA Tour event in Mexico, Funk matched compatriot Craig Stadler as the only players to win a US PGA tournament after a triumph on the 50-and-over Champions Tour.
Funk, 50, won at Turtle Bay last month by 11 strokes while Stadler captured the 2003 BC Open a week after winning the Senior Players Championship.
“I think I validated how good the players are on the Champions Tour,“ Funk said. “Even though you are 50 or 51 through 55 ... age doesn’t really mean anything. I just want to see how long I can last.“
It was the eighth career US PGA title for Funk, whose most recent prior PGA crown had come at the 2005 Players Championship. Funk fired one-over-par 71 closing round. Coceres was able to get to a playoff with a steady 69, a round that included 17 pars and one birdie. But the Argentine remained winless on the PGA Tour since capturing a pair of titles in 2001.
Coceres did have chances, but he missed birdie putts on 17 and 18. “It’s only my second tournament this year, and I needed to have more tournament practice, more tournaments in which I should be playing,“ Coceres said.
“And that put a lot of pressure on me, because I have only two opportunities to play, and it made me a little bit tight.
The pressure caught up with me, especially on 18.“

SAPPORO, Japan, Feb. 26--Russia’s Olga Savialova brought her four-year wait for a major title to an end by winning the women’s pursuit crown here at the world nordic ski championships Sunday, reported AFP.
Savialova, from Siberia, had won one gold and three other medals during a highly successful world championships in 2003, but failed to fire in 2005.
In a 15km, two-leg race of attrition which saw the collapse of favorites Virpi Kuitunen of Finland and Norwegian Marit Bjoergen, the 34-year-old Russian dug deep in a tense finale to beat Czech rival Katerina Neumannova by 0.5sec.
Norwegian Kristin Stoermer Steira finished third at 2.1. In the second 7.5 km leg of the event, held in skating style, the leaders’ pace eventually reduced the contenders to only four skiers in the final lap: Savialova, Neumannova, Steira and Germany’s Evi Sachenbacher.
Despite a late attack by Savialova on the climb preceding the stadium, the race finished in a hotly-contested sprint won by the Russian veteran. Neumannova, the Olympic champion in the 30km event, is still hoping to win gold in what is her final world championships.
She will be one of the favorites in the 10km, held in her specialty of freestyle (skating), on Tuesday. Savialova, however, is also a contender.