Juve in comfort zone as Roma emerge from doldrums

Juventus will head into the international break on a high and with a 14-point lead on closest challengers Roma, who ended a five-game winless run in Italy's Serie A with a 1-0 victory at Cesena on Sunday.
Carlos Tevez took his Serie A goals tally to 16 as Juventus maintained their virtually unassailable advantage with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Genoa.
Genoa travelled to Turin with faint hopes of taking a share of the spoils from the leaders having handed Juve their only defeat of the season last October.
However Genoa goalkeeper Mattia Perin could do little to stop Tevez's 25th minute strike and despite stand-in keeper Eugenio Lamanna later stopping Tevez's spot-kick, the hosts held on to record their 20th win of the campaign.
Tevez now leads fellow Argentinian Mauro Icardi of Inter Milan and AC Milan's French winger Jeremy Menez -- both of whom have 15 goals -- in the race for Serie A's capocannoniere (top scorer) award.
"It was a beautiful goal, what else is there to say?" Tevez told JTV. "But the most important thing is taking all three points, we know how important this game was in terms of the championship. That's one game less, we have to keep in going like this."
While Juve have one hand on the title, Roma were celebrating ending a five-game winless run with a cagey 1-0 victory over Cesena.
It ended a remarkably poor series of results for Rudi Garcia's former title challengers, who saw Daniele De Rossi pounce on a cross early in the second half.
"There's no point in speculating about what we can achieve over the remaining 10 games," Garcia told Sky Sport.
"What we have to do now is to look at one game at a time, especially to our next home game against Napoli."
Roma's third win in 12 successive games mainly served to keep rivals Lazio at bay.
Stefano Pioli's men were impervious throughout a 2-0 win over Verona, with Brazilian sensation Felipe Anderson breaking the deadlock on four minutes. Antonio Candreva later fired a piledriver of a free kick on the stroke of half-time.
Lazio remain third at a point behind Roma, but the Biancocelesti are now four ahead of Sampdoria and five in front of Napoli after a night of contrasting fortunes for them.
Pioli explained his side's purple patch, but expects fireworks when it comes to battling for the European places.
"It's all down to the players' determination and their will to play for each other. We're in a good phase," he told Sky Sport.
"It's a crucial stage of the season and we are by no means expecting an easy run-in. It's going to be a dramatic end to the season for several teams."
A well-struck free kick from Samp striker Eder secured a 1-0 home win over Inter Milan to move the Genoa side up to fourth, with Napoli moving the other way following a dour home draw with 10-man Atalanta in which Duvan Zapata only levelled for the hosts in the 89th minute after Pinilla hit a controversial opener for the visitors after a foul on Henrique that was not whistled.
Irate Napoli coach Rafael Benitez was sent off for dissent in the second half, and later hit out at what he suggested was poor officiating.
"It's hard to run a match with only six officials. We should add another two," the Spaniard said ironically.
Fiorentina remain in the hunt for a Champions League place but were lamenting dropped points in a 2-2 draw away to Udinese.
Malian international Molla Wague opened the scoring for the hosts on the quarter-hour but Mario Gomez struck twice, once with the head, in the space of three second-half minutes to send La Viola in front.
However Fiorentina were stunned just after the hour when Panagiotis Kone was allowed to run in unhindered to the back post to meet Antonio Di Natale's acrobatic cross.
Source: AFP