A summer spree of $250 million on new players was supposed to restore the dwindling fortunes of Manchester United.

If anything, things may be getting worse at Old Trafford.

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton maintained his supremacy in Friday’s second free practice session for this weekend’s United States Grand Prix when he outpaced his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg by just 0.003 of a second.

But he finished his day back in the pits as his team worked on his car to deal with an unspecified leak that raised reliability alarms as he pursues his fifth straight win.

Manchester football supremacy will be at stake at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday when Premier League rivals Manchester City and Manchester United face off in a potentially momentous derby showdown.

United goalkeeping great Peter Schmeichel, who also played for their cross-town rivals, opined this week that City's status as champions meant that they are presently "a bigger club" than United.

Roger Federer believes his Paris Masters quarter-final exit will have little effect on his season-ending assault on the World Tour Finals and a first Davis Cup title.

The 33-year-old, 17-time Grand Slam winner is set to lose ground on Novak Djokovic in the race for the year-ending world number one spot after his straight sets loss to Milos Raonic in the French capital.

LeBron James bounced back from a sub-par performance in his Cleveland homecoming the night before to score 36 points as the Cavaliers defeated Chicago 114-108 in overtime on Friday.

Thursday's loss to the New York Knicks surely wasn't the season-opener James was hoping for but that was all forgotten Friday at the United Center as the four-time most valuable player also had eight rebounds in the Cavaliers' first win of the young NBA season.

Tomas Berdych guaranteed his place at the season-ending World Tour finals for the fifth straight year on Friday as he defeated South African Kevin Anderson to reach the semi-finals of the Paris Masters.

The Czech number one, who won the Bercy tournament on his debut in 2005, his only Masters win to date, came through a tight contest 6-7, (4/7), 6-4, 6-4 in just under three hours.

Just when Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers thought he had had enough of answering awkward questions about controversial striker Mario Balotelli and the club's defense, talismanic skipper Steven Gerrard said he could leave Anfield at the end of the season.

The 34-year-old Liverpool-born midfielder, a one-club man, is approaching 700 appearances in all competitions for the Reds.

FIFA has apologized for an embarrassing diplomatic faux-pas when its video launching the 2018 World Cup logo portrayed the Crimean peninsula as part of Russia.

The disputed clip was beamed on to the facade of Russia's historic Bolshoi Theater at the official unveiling of the 2018 logo in the Russian capital on Tuesday.

LeBron James shot miserably. His passes were errant. He didn't look good doing much other than tossing powder in the air.

His homecoming was horrendous.

Andy Murray clinched a spot in the ATP Finals on Thursday after beating Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets at the Paris Masters and then sent a message to his critics by scribbling "bad year" on a courtside television camera.

Following a tumultuous year that saw him change coach and recover from a serious back injury, Murray booked his spot at the season-ending tournament in London by reaching the quarterfinals at the Palais Omnisports with a 6-3, 6-3 win over No. 9 seed Dimitrov.