Spaniard Roberto Merhi has been confirmed as the newly reformed Manor team's second driver for this weekend's Australian Grand Prix.

The team formally known as Marussia which went into administration at the end of October and missed the final three races of last season, has been rescued by fresh investment just in time to take the grid in Melbourne.

For Manchester United's fans, manager Louis van Gaal's attempts to explain their team's shortcomings may be beginning to carry faint echoes of the reign of his doomed predecessor, David Moyes.

United's regression under Moyes was spectacular, but it was his continued insistence that progress was being made -- despite stark evidence to the contrary -- that particularly irked supporters.

The Atlanta Hawks bounced back from a rare loss to score a season-high 130 points in a rout of the Sacramento Kings on Monday, becoming the first NBA team to 50 wins this season.

Hours later, the Golden State Warriors joined them in the 50-win club, beating the Phoenix Suns 98-80.

Argentina won the decisive singles match against Brazil on Monday to close out a dramatic Davis Cup encounter marred by reports of racist taunts by spectators during the longest singles match ever played in the competition.

Brazil's Joao Souza told the Brazilian website SporTV.com that he heard fans call him a monkey during his reverse singles match against Leonardo Mayer on Sunday. Mayer won it after 6 hours, 42 minutes to level the best-of-five-match series at 2-all.

Recalling the first time he was exposed to racism in football a decade ago, Samuel Eto'o said he made an immediate decision to "stand up and shout" rather than continue to endure abuses and hatred on the field.

On Monday, the four-time African player of the year was honored for his work countering racism, receiving the European Medal of Tolerance from the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, a non-governmental organization.

With one clinical finish, Danny Welbeck propelled Arsenal into the FA Cup semifinals and made former club Manchester United pay for selling him last summer.

Welbeck marked his first return to Old Trafford by grabbing a 61st-minute winner in a 2-1 victory for Arsenal on Monday, in a matchup between the competition's two most successful teams.

Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti has insisted that his star front three of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale will always start when fit despite a recent dip in form from all three.

The European champions were usurped at the top of La Liga for the first time in five months on Sunday as Barcelona took advantage of Madrid's fourth defeat in 14 games in 2015 at Athletic Bilbao 24 hours earlier with a 6-1 thrashing of Rayo Vallecano.

After winning the English League Cup to end a trophy drought of nearly three years, Jose Mourinho now has his sights set on joining Carlo Ancelotti and Bob Paisley as the only managers to win the Champions League or European Cup three times.

Chelsea will first have to get past Paris Saint-Germain in its last-16 tie, however. Chelsea and PSG drew their first match 1-1 last month, with Mourinho's men having the advantage of the away goal.

Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland rallied to win the Monterrey Open early Monday for her second straight WTA Tour title in Mexico.

The fourth-seeded Bacsinszky beat third-seeded Caroline Garcia of France 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 after waiting out a four-hour rain delay in the second set in the hard-court event at Club Sonoma.

Around the world, it's an almost endless cycle. While Germany's win at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil is still fresh in the memories of football fans, qualifying is set to begin for the 2018 edition, with Asia's 12 lowest-ranked teams set to play their opening matches this week.

For teams such as tiny Bhutan, which is in last place in FIFA's rankings at No. 209, and India, considered a potential sleeping giant in the game, failure in the first-round qualifiers would spell the end of their World Cup aspirations for another four years. None of the teams in action in the first round has ever qualified for the final stage.