The week in numbers: w/e 11/9/11

Marsh scored 141 on debut, surpassing his father's Test best

141 – In his debut Test innings Australia’s Shaun Marsh scored 141, surpassing his father Geoff’s top score of 138, which he accumulated over a 50-Test career.

13 – The top four men’s singles seeds at the US Open (Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray) all reached the semi-finals, only the 13th time in history this has been achieved at a Grand Slam tournament in the Open era.

4 – Andy Murray reached the semis at all four Grand Slams this year, the first time he has achieved this. Having reached the final in Australia, he lost his semi-final matches at the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.

0 – Sets lost by Serena Williams in reaching the US Open final. However, she lost 6-2 6-3 to Australian Sam Stosur.

2 – Stosur became only the second Australian woman to win the US Open singles title. (Margaret Court won five times between 1962 and 1973.) She is also the first Australian winner of any of the four Grand Slam women’s singles titles since Evonne Goolagong at Wimbledon 1980

Vettel has already all but clinched his second F1 title (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

112 – Points advantage of Sebastian Vettel over his nearest challenger, Red Bull teammate Mark Webber, after the German clinched his eighth win of the season at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. There are only 150 points still available, meaning Vettel could clinch his second consecutive Formula 1 drivers’ title in Singapore in two weeks’ time.

5 – The five world champions currently on the F1 grid occupied the first five places at Monza: Vettel, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.

9 – Overall Vuelta a España winner Juan José Cobo was the ninth different rider to wear the red leader’s jersey during this year’s race, one more than the previous record of eight in 2008.

19 – Runner-up Chris Froome actually completed the 21-stage course 19 seconds faster than Cobo, but the Spaniard had a net 32-second gain in time bonuses to take victory by 13 seconds.

1 - Ashley Young‘s goal in England‘s 1-0 win over Wales was the only shot on target of the entire match.

0 – England are the only side yet to concede a goal from inside the area in Euro 2012 qualifying.

Toseland was forced into retirement after his hand injury (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

30 - Age of double World Superbike champion James Toseland, who retired last week after being left permanently disabled by a crash which damaged his right wrist in March.

500 – Mark Cavendish‘s victory at stage one of the Tour of Britain was the 500th win for HTC-Highroad since the team’s formation in 2008. The most successful squad in the sport during that period is disbanding at the end of this year.

3 – Three Warwickshire batsmen scored centuries in the same innings (Ian Westwood 171, Jim Troughton 151, Rikki Clarke 126) as Nottinghamshire were defeated by an innings and 114 runs at Liverpool.

11 – Ryan Sidebottom recorded match figures of 11 for 98 in Yorkshire’s six-wicket win over Somerset at Headingley.

2 – Alistair Brownlee secured his second world triathlon title in three seasons after winning the event in Beijing. Brother Jonathan was third, but finished as the overall runner-up.

Rookie Cobb made an immediate impact with an NFL record-tying kick return (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

108 – In the opening game of the 2011 NFL season on Thursday night, Green Bay Packers rookie wide receiver Randall Cobb returned a kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown, tying the all-time NFL record. He also caught a 32-yard touchdown pass as the Packers defeated the New Orleans Saints 42-34.

12 - Green Bay‘s win means the defending Super Bowl champions have won their last 11 season openers. The last opening day loss was by the Denver Broncos in 1999.

422 – Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton passed for 422 yards (with two TDs and one interception) in the 28-21 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. This was a record total for a rookie quarterback on his NFL debut, and tied the best single-game total by a rookie.

59 – Seconds between the San Francisco 49ers’ Ted Ginn Jr returning first a kickoff 102 yards and then a punt 55 yards for touchdowns in the 49ers’ 33-17 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

The Premier League in numbers

15 – Tottenham‘s 2-0 win at Wolves broke a run of 15 winless away games in the Premier League in the month of September, dating back to 2001.

Six goals in two games for Rooney

4 – Wayne Rooney‘s hat-trick in Manchester United’s 5-0 win at Bolton made him the fourth player in Premier League history to score consecutive hat-tricks (after Les Ferdinand, Ian Wright and Didier Drogba).

18 – Manchester United have scored 18 goals in their opening four league game, a new Premier League record.

7 – Chelsea‘s 2-1 win means they have now won on each of their last seven visits to Sunderland.

6 – Sergio Agüero‘s hat-trick in Manchester City’s 3-0 win over Wigan gave him six league goals so far this season, the same as teammate Edin Džeko. 15 of the 20 Premier League teams have scored fewer than six goals.

4 – Norwich have now conceded a penalty in four successive Premier League games. Declan Rudd saved it, but West Bromwich Albion nonetheless won 1-0.

The Rugby World Cup in numbers

4 – Jonny Wilkinson missed four successive kicks during England’s 13-9 win over Argentina.

6 – Argentina’s Felipe Contepomi and Martín Rodríguez combined to miss six of nine kicks in the same match.

Winger Goneva got off to a flying start with four tries

4 – Tries scored by Fiji winger Vereniki Goneva in his country’s 49-25 victory over Namibia.

3 – Namibian fly-half Theuns Kotze kicked three drop goals against Fiji. No other player has yet kicked one.

21 – New Zealand-born James Arlidge scored all of Japan’s points in the 47-21 defeat by France (two tries, one conversion, three penalties). At one point in the second half Japan closed to 25-21 before France pulled away.

815 – Defending champions South Africa fielded the most-capped starting XV in rugby union history in their narrow 17-16 victory over Wales, with a combined total of 815 caps.

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