ANOTHER CHANCE FOR MURRAY

The final tennis 'Grand Slam' of the year gets under way shortly with the now usual British expectations of Andy Murray success.

Those who apparently know, believe that the US Open is Murray's best chance of Grand Slam success; let's wait and see. Quarter final should be the least expectation, semi-final should be achievable, but a place in the final or, even, overall victory, is a different matter. My money has to be on Djokovic whose form this year has been nothing short of remarkable. Nadal, the defending champion, will be looking for revenge for his Wimbledon defeat by the Serb, and Federer may still try to prove that he's a runner; Murray is some way behind these three in the stakes.

All we can do is watch the results and hope.

In the meantime, we also have Elena Baltacha, Heather Watson and Laura Robson in the ladies event - what price all three making it to the second round ? Or what price one of them ? Sadly, my money would probably be on none.

ARSENAL JOIN TOTTENHAM IN TEARS.

My day of gloom has been relieved to some extent by the knowledge that Tottenham's arch rivals, Arsenal, have been beaten 8-2 by Manchester United.

I suspect it will take the statisticians some time to discover when Arsenal last conceded 8 goals but I also suspect that this result may sound the death knell for Arsenal's long-standing manager, Arsene Wenger; no trophies for 6 or 7 years is one thing, to be beaten so horribly is quite another.

The worst part of today's results is that it's now abundantly clear that no one can compete with the financial muscle of the Manchester clubs and, possibly, Chelsea. That much of their money comes from foreign billionaires who've invested for purely personal reasons, seems to be ignored, as does the fact that football, as any sort of genuinely competitive sport, is being destroyed by the lust for success of both the owners and supporters.

Scottish football has been a joke for years, with Rangers and Celtic sharing the league title for decades, interrupted only rarely by others. The English league is now on the verge of joining them as being a pointless exercise for all but 3 or 4 clubs supported by Russian, or other, oligarchs; it's pathetic and ridiculous. It makes a mockery of our premier national sport.

Will, or can, anyone do anything about it ?

WHO'D BE A SPURS' SUPPORTER ?

Being a Tottenham supporter, today's result against Manchester City is horrific. To lose at home is bad enough but to lose 5-1 is shocking.

Tottenham have a problem in scoring goals, that is known; for all the hype, Defoe and Crouch really don't 'cut the mustard' in the Premier League, but our defence has usually been able to keep the opponents out most of the time. Today's defensive failure suggests that we may be in for a pretty dreadful season.

Yet again, Tottenham have built a basis for giving their supporters expectations of success only to let them down in a big way.

ENGLAND : BEST OF A BAD BUNCH ?

India's pathetic surrender in the last Test Match surely throws doubt on the nonsense that, by beating them, England could become the best cricket team in the world. England did not win the last match so much as India simply gave up; that's not to say that England may not well have won anyway, but the way in which India allowed England to dominate after having such a terrible start was hardly the mark of a side hitherto considered to be the number 1 international team. The truth is that India, Dravid and Tendulkar excepted, showed no steel and were pretty poor opposition.

On the other hand, England are a competent side, if not a great one. They have a number of players with undoubted ability, but rarely hit peak form at the same time; the opening partnership is too often a short one, and there is too often far too much reliance on the lower order to retrieve a wobbly situation. The bowling seems to be problematic, Anderson sometimes looking like a genuine world-class performer and sometimes not, while Swan seems to have gone off the boil; Bresnan, Broad, Tremlett and Finn, despite occasional top-flight showings, don't really seem to be consistent enough and wonders which of them might have found a place in an England team of earlier times.

If England do achieve the number 1 spot, it will, I feel, say a lot more about how weak international cricket now is, rather than how strong England are.

VETTEL AND RED BULL HEAD FOR THE SKY.

Despite Jenson Button's well-earned victory in last week's Hungarian Grand Prix, the drivers' championship seems destined to go the the reigning world champion, Sebastian Vettel. There's no doubt that Vettel, and the Red Bull team, no longer has the advantage over other teams that they enjoyed earlier in the year, but they have built up such a lead in the 2 championships that relatively mediocre performances in the remaining races will suffice to see them safely home.

The only question really now to be answered is 'who will come second to Vettel ?'. His team mate, Mark Webber, the 2 McClaren drivers, Button and Lewis Hamilton, and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso are all within a handful of points of each and any of them could end up taking the runners-up spot. It should really be Mark Webber, given that he's clearly had the better car for the season so far, but he's failed to capitalise in the way that his team mate has and I can't see him outscoring the others in the rest of the season. Alonso is a driver who, like Michael Schumacher in the past, gets the very best, and then a bit more, out of his car and it did look as though he might be coming into his own but Hungary surprisingly showed that McClaren seem to have made a huge stride forward in the last few weeks. If there are more wet races, and Belgium, Singapore, Japan and Brazil could all provide damp conditions at least, then Jenson Button may be the man to sneak second place, otherwise I think my money's on his team mate, Hamilton, to get there. Whatever the outcome, the eight remaining races are sure to provide plenty of drama.

The rest of this F1 season will also provide us with the last opportunity to watch a complete F1 championship on free-to-air television. With the BBC looking to save whatever money it can, the deal to allow Sky to take the lead in FI means that only half of next year's races will be shown live on BBC, the rest, as I understand it being restricted to the practice sessions, qualifying and race highlights. One has to wonder what this will actually do to the popularity of F1, as it's unlikely that many people will be willing to take out new Sky subscriptions just for FI, while many of those who've traditionally followed the sport on terrestrial television  may find themselves losing interest with what will become a disjointed coverage. I've followed the sport since the days of Graham Hill and Jim Clark and now watch every race, whatever time of day they're on; even so, I'm far from certain which direction my own future viewing choice will take. Do I fork out a fortune to Sky, or simply accept that this is yet another sport that's no longer one that can be followed with any consistency ?