It was another huge weekend of sport as Wimbledon continued on, the Confederations Cup reached its conclusion and the Wallabies and Lions went toe to toe in the Rugby Union.
The big news of the weekend sports action was Brazil’s 3-0 win over world number one Spain in the Confederations Cup final. This tournament was basically a dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup and host nation Brazil showed they might just be entering another golden era as they soared high with young gun Neymar scoring a cracking goal in the final to send the crowd into raptures.
Silverstone threw up a drama-filled round of the Formula 1 and for once the result wasn’t completely predictable with championship leader Sebastian Vettel forced to retire and local hope Lewis Hamilton blowing a tyre. In the end it was Nico Rosberg taking the chequered flag with Mark Webber second. More importantly, our sports betting tip of Fernando Alonso to score a podium finish brought us a tidy score with the Ferrari driver coming home in third.
Wimbledon continues to throw up some surprise results. The main problem with the four Grand Slams is they can be a bit too predictable during the early rounds but the shock exits of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova among others has thrown a spanner in the works in this year’s event. The men’s now looks to be a shootout between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic while Serena Williams has won 35 consecutive matches this year and will be hard to beat for her 17th Grand Slam title.
The Wallabies scored a late try to beat the British & Irish Lions in Melbourne and send the three-Test Rugby series to a decider this weekend. The Wallabies lost a heart-breaker a week earlier when Kurtley Beale missed a late penalty to go down 23-21 in the series opener, but they turned the tables with Adam Ashley-Cooper scoring in the 76th-minute to give the Wallabies a 16-15 lead and Lions goal-kicker Leigh Halfpenny missing a long-range kick on full-time to tie the series at 1-1.
The Tour de France is also underway although a chaotic opening stage in which a team bus that got stuck on the finish line – forcing organizers to end the stage early – means none of the pre-race favourites have had a chance to make their presence felt just yet. Luckily there are plenty more late nights for us to watch the race unfold over the coming fortnight.
Australia’s wild weather has made tipping treacherous this week but big wins from Hawthorn in the AFL and Newcastle in the NRL have kept us afloat.
