Firstpost Spodcast Episode 80: Roger Federer's shock defeat, Real Madrid's new coach and more on our daily podcast

Welcome to Spodcast, the sports update on Firstpost. In today’s episode, we talk about Roger Federer’s shock defeat in the ATP Finals at the hands of World No 9 Kei Nishikori, Real Madrid’s move to promote Santiago Solari as head coach and more. First we start with Roger Federer’s shock defeat in the ATP Finals tournament in London on Monday. Federer, who has won the tournament six times, was surprised by World No 9 Kei Nishikori of Japan in the round-robin match. Nishikori won the match 7-6, 6-3. Elsewhere, in football news, Real Madrid have promoted Santiago Solari to the role of permanent coach after the team showed improved performances under his guidance. Solari, who was coaching Castilla, was appointed interim coach of Real Madrid after the sacking of the previous coach Julen Lopetegui. We also discuss India’s spin bowler Kuldeep Yadav, who had a good T20 series against the West Indies, is now ranked 23rd in the ICC’s T20 bowling rankings, the best of his career so far. Yadav, who was ranked 37 prior to the series, picked up five wickets in two matches at an economy-rate of 5.6 in India’s 3-0 sweep of the reigning T20 champions. Bhuvneshwar Kumar moved up nine places to the 19th rank and Jasprit Bumrah moved up five spots to number 21. Indian batsmen Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan also improved their rankings. Sharma is now ranked seventh while Dhawan moved up to 16th place. In team rankings, Pakistan hold on to the top spot for T20s while India are ranked second. India will take on Australia in three T20Is between 21 and 25 November. India’s challenge at the ongoing World Women’s Chess Championship in Russia came to an end after Harika Dronavalli was defeated by former champion Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia. Harika was going well until the tiebreaker of the third round. She then received a jolt in the first game of the rapid tiebreak where both players have 25 minutes on the clock. The Indian Grandmaster looked like she was done but then staged a major comeback — she won the return game with white pieces to level the score. However, on Sunday, in the 10-minute games, she lost the first game with black. She lost the second game as well, and found herself in a must-win situation with white, but could only manage a draw against Kosteniuk.