The Week in Review: Sport

RESPITE arrives for Brian Clough as Nottingham Forest, long-term residents of the Premier League basement, topple Leeds United 4-1. Needless to say, Forest remain rooted to the foot of the table. An Anfield old boys' act decides a pulsating Merseyside derby. Peter Beardsley applies the finish to Gary Ablett's cross as Everton emerge 2-1 winners over Liverpool.

Two notable departures from the sport of tennis. Dan Maskell, the cream of Wimbledon commentators, dies aged 84. John McEnroe, another orator, though distinctly less genteel, bids farewell to Europe with defeat in the Grand Slam Cup. The New Yorker is eliminated in the quarter-finals by Goran Ivanisevic. His exit is accompanied by the obligatory warning for abuse and a hint that his 15-year marriage to the game is at an end. He cannot be serious, or can he?

Earlier in the week McEnroe helps the United States to victory over Switzerland in the Davis Cup final. Success is confirmed by Jim Courier's win over Jakob Hlasek.

Sri Lanka win their third Test match in 42 attempts with a nine- wicket defeat of New Zealand in Colombo. The Test and County Cricket Board tampers ever so slightly with regulations at the winter get-together at Lord's. The tinkerings amount to an increase in the value of no-balls to two and alterations to the county bonus points system.

The French Grand Prix is struck off the Formula One calendar, a triumph for the nation's anti-tobacco campaigners irked by names such as Camel and Marlboro appearing on French television. Where there's smoke there's ire.