Men In Black

Clad all in black with only the white Nike stripes showing on headband and left shoulder breaking the shadowy effect, Roger Federer moved into equal second spot on the Tennis Grand Slam list this Sunday with a regulation win at the US Open.

He now has 12 slams and sits only 2 behind the Sampras record.

On the same weekend, only one team really showed form capable of winning the Rugby World Cup - and they too, were clad all in black. Whilst hosts France incredibly lost to an inspired and obdurate Argentina, the New Zealand All Blacks put 70 points on Six-Nations Italy and barely broke into a sweat whilst doing so. Frightening.

Meanwhile England scraped through against the US, Ireland were pushed close by Namibia, as were Wales by Canada, and Scotland had a lot of luck in their game against Portugal.

Clearly Nike are looking for a black period in sporting dominance. And it looks like they're going to get it.

Carlos Moya versus Djokovic and Time

At 32 years Carlos Moya is getting towards grandaddy age in professional tennis terms. However, the former world number 1 and ex-Roland garros champion had made solid progress through to the quarter-finals of the US Open Tennis using his experience to wins over some pretty good young guns.

Still in tip-top physical shape, Moya was moving well and you could see he felt confident. In one of his matches your correspondent caught a couple of middle-aged women spectators almost fainting with desire in the first rows everytime the rugged Spaniard served in front of them. At that point in his 3rd-round tie, two sets in and the humidity of the New York nights making him glow with perspiration, if you had captured a thimble-full of that sweat I reckon you could have sold it to the ladies for a couple of hundred bucks.

Unfortunately for Carlos his quarter final set him up against the new kid on the block Djokovic, a Serb who looks like he could give King Roger a run for his money in the very near future. Although this match looked like a last crack at a big title for Moya and you knew he would try to pull out all the stops, youth was definitely in the ascendant here. The unforgiving clock had run on a bit too far for the old-timer.

And so it proved. Djokovic dispatched Moya in 3 straight sets to set up a semi against another Spaniard, Ferrer. This will be a good match up because Ferrer is fast and persistent - something the young Serb has yet to face, but on present form, and providing his dodgy back holds up, we are looking at a new champion - at least sometime soon.

Women's Marathon Athletics World Championships

Osaka, Japan: Catherine Ndereba of Kenya wins the female marathon title, breaking her three main opponents at 2 hrs 25 minutes into the race when she stole a 30 metre lead and never looked like letting it go - finishing nine minutes later in a time of 2 hours 30 minutes 37 seconds.

Top Ten Finishing Positions - Women's Marathon - World Athletics Championships.

At 2hrs 17 mins: 2 Kenyans hit the front - one of them is Ndereba. Pack of eight gets split leaving five - 2 Chinese and Tosa from Japan.
2.19: Leading pack now down to four - 2 Kenyans and 2 Chinese.
2.21: Ndereba pushes and takes the two Chinese with her - It's Zhou and Zhu.
2.22: Your reporter checks he read that correctly.
2.23: He did, amazingly, and Tosa appears to be bridging the gap to the front three.
2.25: Ndereba now pushes again and steals a 30 metre gap on Zhou who also puts 30 metres on Zhu.
2.26: Tosa is catching Zhu in third.
2.28: Ndereba is grimacing but is holding the gap steady on her pursuer as she enters the stadium.
2.30: She's the champion, Catherine Ndereba wins and she's on her knees and now hunched over. Incantations and she's up again to collect obligatory national flag for waving. Zhu comes in second 8 seconds behind and Tora grabs a medal for her adoring home crowd a further ten seconds behind.