31st January

So I'm back! It's been a while since I blogged about sport specifically, but here we are again.

This new blog of mine is basically going to be a daily update on what has interested me in the world of sport. Naturally, this will predominantly be my areas of interest,,so a lot of football and a smattering of rugby and cricket, but I will also try to look at other sports along the way.

Anyway, that's enough of an intro, let's get down to business.

The FA Cup

The big (and annoyingly boring) story of the weekend is of course the 4th Round of the FA Cup and after a disappointing amount of cup shocks in Round 3, with only Oxford managing a real, huge giant killing, Round 4 also offers...even less. Let me run you through the so called "big" teams in the Premier League right now: 

• Manchester United: Beat Derby 3-1
• Tottenham: Beat Colchester 4-1
• Arsenal: Beat Burnley 2-1
• Manchester City: Beat Aston Villa 4-0
• Everton: Beat Carlisle 3-0
• Chelsea are 3-1 up against MK Dons at HT at time of publishing through an Oscar hat-trick.

Bournemouth and Watford also knocked out lower league opposition, Blackburn swept aside the chance of a giant killing against heroes of the last round Oxford, and in the two, potentially interesting all Premier League clashes, Crystal Palace beat Stoke 1-0, and Liverpool and West Ham shared almost the epitome of a goalless draw. 

So the only two teams that produced a shock in this round are League 1 promotion chasers Peterborough, who did exceptionally well to snatch a replay against West Brom and League 1 strugglers Shrewsbury, who easily deserve the title of cupset of the round by scoring very late to vanquish Championship opposition in Sheffield Wednesday. 

Basically, everyone who was hoping for some cup magic was sorely disappointed. 

Tennis: The Australian Open 

And anyone who was hoping for some Murray magic today would have also been sorely disappointed, because Andy Murray, as predicted by presumably almost everyone who wasn't a huge optimist, was beaten by Novak Djokovic. Even more disappointing was the nature of Murray's defeat. He was turned over in the 1st set, which was over before it had even begun and leaving himself a mountain to climb, Murray consistently made life hard for himself. 40-0 up whilst serving at 5-5 in the 2nd Set, Murray completely capitulated and Djokovic broke him to take the 2nd set 7-5. And after a hard fought 3rd set, Murray threw away the tiebreaker with two double faults, to hand Djokovic the match. 

As much as the hard truth for Murray fans is that Djokovic is a better player, it's constantly frustrating to watch Murray go up against him, put in a really, really good display and then totally crumble in the key moments. Murray is almost a match for Djokovic physically, but I genuinely think it's highly unlikely that he's going to get over that mental block he appears to have when it comes to the world number 1. 

At least not any time soon. 

The "Hard and Fast Section" (Where I summarize some sports stories in ten words or less):

• Saints lost to Wasps at home. For the love of...
• Leamington Commentary update: left back scores worldie.
• India are better at T20 than Australia. Ha.
• Celtic are laughably bad at football under Ronny Deila.