The week in numbers: w/e 18/9/11

Djokovic improved his record against Nadal in 2011 to 6-0 in winning the US Open

6 – Novak Djokovic‘s 6-2 6-4 6-6 6-1 victory over Rafael Nadal in Monday’s US Open men’s singles final improved his 2011 record against the Spaniard to 6-0 and made him only the sixth man to win three Grand Slam singles titles in the same year, joining Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander, Roger Federer (three times) and Nadal.

97.0% – Djokovic‘s win percentage in 2011, currently the best single-year record ever. He has lost just twice in 66 matches this year.

26 – Federer (12), Nadal (10) and Djokovic (four) have now won 26 of the last 27 Slams between them, dating back to the 2005 French Open. The only man to break the sequence is Juan Martín del Potro, who won the US Open in 2009.

77 – Lancashire won their first County Championship in 77 years after beating Somerset by eight wickets.

3 – AC Milan became only the third team in Champions League history to score in the first and last minutes, as they drew 2-2 at Barcelona. Alexandro Pato‘s opening goal after 24 seconds was the fifth-fastest in the history of the competition.

17 – Borussia Dortmund’s late equaliser in a 1-1 draw extended Arsenal‘s run of Champions League away games without a clean sheet to 17 games.

Giggs has now scored in 16 separate Champions League campaigns

16 – Ryan Giggs‘ goal for Manchester United in the 1-1 draw at Benfica means he has now scored in a record 16 of the 17 Champions League campaigns he has played in, failing only in 2007-08.

2 – Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake recorded the fastest times of 2011 in the 100 and 200 metres respectively at the Diamond League meeting in Brussels. Bolt clocked 9.76s in the 100 metres, while Blake’s 19.26s in the 200 metres was also the second-fastest run ever, 0.07s behind Bolt’s world record.

1 – Jonathan Trott became the first ever English cricketer to win the ICC Cricketer of the Year award outright. (Andrew Flintoff shared the award with Jacques Kallis in 2005.) Alastair Cook also won Test Player of the Year.

8 – Barcelona‘s 8-0 win over Osasuna in La Liga on Saturday night marked the first time they had scored eight times in a game at the Camp Nou since October 2003. Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick.

3 – The HTC-Highroad pair of Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw recorded three one-two wins during the Tour of Britain‘s eight stages. Cavendish won the final sprint in London to claim his second stage. Dutchman Lars Boom won the overall race by 36 seconds.

58:56 – Kenya’s Martin Mathathi broke the men’s record for the Great North Run, winning in a time of 58:56 – nine seconds faster than the previous record and the sixth-best half-marathon time ever.

The Premier League in numbers

3 – All three promoted sides won on Saturday: Swansea beat West Bromwich Albion 3-0, while QPR and Norwich won 3-0 at Wolves and 2-1 at Bolton respectively.

Arteta has scored for both Everton and Arsenal at Ewood Park this season (image courtesy of arsenal.com)

2 – Mikel Arteta‘s goal in Arsenal’s 4-3 defeat at Blackburn marked the second time he has scored in the Premier League at Ewood Park this season. He had already scored the only goal when Everton won 1-0 in August.

3 – Shots on target by Blackburn, who scored four goals.

373 – Scott Sinclair’s 14th-minute opener for Swansea was their first Premier League goal, ending a run of 373 minutes without scoring.

5 – Bolton‘s 2-1 defeat at home to Norwich means they have lost five consecutive top-flight home matches for the first time ever.

5 – Norwich equalled Wimbledon’s feat (in the 1999-2000 season) of conceding a penalty in each of the first five games of a season.

14 – Liverpool‘s 4-0 defeat at Tottenham, in which they finished with just nine men, was the 14th consecutive away game in which they have gone on to lose after trailing at half-time.

4 – Stoke‘s 4-0 defeat at Sunderland means they have failed to score in their four Premier League visits to the Stadium of Light.

5 – Wayne Rooney became only the second player to score in each of first five matches of a season, scoring the last of Manchester United’s goals in the 3-1 win over Chelsea. Former Arsenal player José Antonio Reyes was the first to achieve the feat, in 2004/05.

6 – Martin Jol remains unbeaten as a manager against Manchester City as Fulham recovered from two goals down to draw 2-2. However, the draw did end his perfect record of six wins out of six against City prior to yesterday’s game.

1 – Four of the five teams who started the weekend winless – Blackburn, Swansea, Sunderland, Norwich – won their matches. Only Fulham remain waiting for their first victory.

The Rugby World Cup in numbers

11 – Penalties committed by England in an ill-disciplined first half of their 41-10 win over Georgia. They conceded just three after the interval.

Shaw became England's oldest ever World Cup player

38 – At 38 years and 17 days, Simon Shaw became the oldest player to play for England at a Rugby World Cup.

0 – Number of tries scored in Scotland‘s 15-6 win over Romania.

1 – Russia lost 13-6 to the USA in their debut World Cup match, as Mike Petri scored the only try in the first half. It was also only the third ever win in the competition for the USA.

83 – New Zealand‘s 83 points in their 83-7 win over Japan was the 14th highest score in Rugby World Cup history. In total, they have posted six of the top 14 individual scores.

3 – Australia‘s 15-6 defeat to Ireland was only the third time they had failed to score a try in their 36 World Cup matches.

6 – South Africa and Argentina both scored six tries from six different players as they beat Fiji 49-3 and Romania 43-8 respectively.

The NFL in numbers

11 – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady became only the 11th man to pass for over 500 yards in a single game as he registered 517 yards and four touchdown passes in a 38-24 Monday night win over the Miami Dolphins. One of Brady’s four touchdown passes was a 99-yarder to Wes Welker, a former Dolphin.

358 – However Brady did throw one interception, ending his NFL record streak without an interception at 358 pass attempts.

Janikowski tied the NFL record with a towering 63-yard FG (image courtesy of raiders.com)

63 – The Oakland Raiders’ Sebastian Janikowski tied the NFL record by kicking a 63-yard field goal in their 23-20 win over the Denver Broncos. New Orleans’ Tom Dempsey (in 1970) and Denver’s Jason Elam (1998) also landed 63-yarders.

5 – The Buffalo Bills scored on all five second half possessions as they overcame a 21-3 half-time deficit to beat the Oakland Raiders 38-35. The lead changed hands five times in the last 14:10, the last on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Ryan Fitzpatrick to David Nelson with 14 seconds remaining.

45 – The Detroit Lions‘ margin of victory in their 48-3 win over the Kansas City Chiefs was the largest in the team’s history.

16 – Santonio Holmes‘ first quarter score in the New York Jets‘ 32-3 win over Jacksonville broke his team’s streak of 16 consecutive games without an offensive touchdown in the opening period.

11 – Rookie running back Ben Tate became only the 11th player in NFL history to rush for at least 100 yards in his first two games as the Houston Texans defeated the Miami Dolphins 23-13. Tate gained 107 yards on the ground.

7 – Both Carolina Panthers rookie Cam Newton and New England’s Tom Brady had their second consecutive 400-yard passing days, becoming only the sixth and seventh quarterbacks ever to achieve the feat. Carolina have lost both games (they lost 30-23 to the Green Bay Packers last night); New England have won both (they beat San Diego 35-21).

(Some statistics courtesy of Opta Sports, The Times, StatManJon, Infostrada, nfl.com and rugbyworldcup.com.)

The week in numbers: w/e 8/5/11

Higgins captured his fourth world title (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

4 – John Higgins won his fourth snooker World Championship with a battling 18-15 victory over Judd Trump. It was the Scotsman’s sixth tournament victory since returning from a six-month ban last November.

3 – Manchester United and Barcelona safely negotiated the second legs of their Champions League semi-finals to progress to the final at Wembley Stadium later this month. It will be a record third time the two teams have met in a European final.

18 – A 0-0 draw at Roma was enough to secure AC Milan‘s 18th Serie A title, their first in six years.

8 – Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimović, who is on loan at Milan, has now won a league title in each of the last eight seasons with five different clubs in three different countries.

Ballesteros won five Majors

54 – Age of the widely adored golfer Severiano Ballesteros, who died on Saturday morning after a 2½ year battle with a brain tumour. Seve won The Open three times and the Masters twice, and contributed to five European Ryder Cup wins as both a player and captain.

33 – Cristinao Ronaldo scored four times as Real Madrid won 6-2 at Sevilla. He now has 33 La Liga goals this season, two more than Lionel Messi.

5 – Hat-tricks scored in league games by Ronaldo this season, only the third player ever to achieve this in La Liga.

12 – Goals scored by Real Madrid in their last two away games, against Sevilla and Valencia.

6:29 – Time taken for four goals to be scored in the game between Hércules and Racing Santander. Racing won 3-2.

5 – Lancashire spinner Simon Kerrigan took five wickets for just seven runs as Warwickshire were bowled out for 97 in the second innings of their first division match. Kerrigan finished with match figures of 7/26 as he and fellow spinner Gary Keedy combined for 10 wickets in the match at a cost of just 28 runs. Lancashire won a low-scoring match by 147 runs.

Djokovic has a 32-0 record in 2011 (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

32 – Serbia’s Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal 7-5 6-4 in the final of the Madrid Open to extend his unbeaten start to 2011 to 32 matches. Only John McEnroe has started a season with a longer winning streak (42 matches in 1984).

37 – Defeat to Djokovic ended Nadal’s unbeaten run on clay at 37 matches, dating back to the 2009 French Open.

12 – Despite narrowly losing stage two to Alessandro Petacchi, Britain’s Mark Cavendish leads the Giro d’Italia by 12 seconds overall.

4 – Defending Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel secured his fourth pole position in four races in 2011 at the Turkish Grand Prix, and converted it into his third win of the season.

82 – There were 82 pit-stops at the Turkish GP, the highest number for a single race in the history of F1.

The Premier League in numbers

7 – Sunderland‘s 2-1 win at Bolton meant that Steve Bruce is now unbeaten in all seven games as a manager against Bolton. Ivan Klasnic‘s 87th-minute goal was the first time a Bruce side had conceded against Bolton.

Odemwingie scored for the fifth game in a row

5 – Peter Odemwingie became the first West Bromwich Albion player in more than 40 years to score in five successive top flight matches. Nonetheless, his side lost 3-1 at Wolves.

34 – West Brom extended their Premier League record of games without a clean sheet to 34.

2 – Tottenham conceded two penalties in the space of two minutes in their 1-1 home draw with Blackpool. Heurelho Gomes saved Charlie Adam‘s first effort, but then conceded the second penalty himself, and Adam made no mistake with his second attempt.

5 – West Ham‘s 1-1 draw with Blackburn was the fifth consecutive draw between the two clubs.

8 – Robin van Persie extended his Premier League record of scoring in consecutive away games to eight in Arsenal‘s 3-1 defeat at Stoke.

36 – Javier Hernández opened the scoring after just 36 seconds as Manchester United beat Chelsea 2-1 to move them to within a point of claiming a record 19th league title.

(Some statistics courtesy of Opta Sports, The Times, @InfostradaLive and @StatManJon.)