For the first time in its history, the Armenian national team has a real chance to fight through to the final stage of the European Championship.

Football: Armenian forwards Gevorg Ghazaryan and Marcos Pizzelli signed 3-year contracts with Metallurg Donetsk. “We have closely watches the guys’ career, so there was no need for a try-out,” Metallurg sports director Vardan Israelyan said. The first match the Armenian forwards played as part of the Ukrainian FC was a friendly against Ujpest (Hungary) on June 21. Earlier, Metallurg signed a contract with Armenian midfielder Karlen Mkrtchyan.

Tennis:Former Wimbledon finalist and Tennis Masters Cup champion, David Nalbandian lost to Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 5-7 and 1-6 in the AGEON Championship third round at The Queen’s Club in London. Nalbandian who entered the tournament after obtaining a wildcard invitation, had wins over Ilia Marchenko and Ilia Bozoljac in the previous rounds. Even though the Argentine looks in better shape than he has for some time, his physique as sleek as his game, he couldn’t take a hold on Verdasco

The long-awaited Armenia-Russia UEFA EURO 2012 qualifier finally took place but unfortunately ended in defeat of the Armenian team. The first goal of the match that was scored by midfielder Marcos Pizzelli was followed by Roman Pavlyuchenko’s hat-trick.

Prior to the UEFA EURO 2012 qualifier against Russia, Armenia captain Sargis Hovsepyan, in a conversation with PanARMENIAN.Net, introduced his team-mates and commented on each player's features and role in the team.

Boxing: IBO bantamweight champion Vic Darchinyan commented on WBC and WBO bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire’s accusations.

Boxing:Arthur Abraham (32-3, 26 KOs) saw his dreams go up in smoke when he was dominated over twelve rounds by WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (24-0, 13 KOs). With respect to his future, Abraham is still not sure on what he plans to do.

Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian, who was one of the favorites and the highest-ranked participant of the Candidates Matches 2011, was kicked out of the game unexpectedly by his ¼ final rival, Alexander Grischuk of Russia.

Chess: FIDE has published the rankings of world’s 100 strongest chess players. The men’s list is topped by India’s Viswanathan Anand (2817 points), followed by Norway’s Magnus Carlsen (2815 points) and Armenia’s Levon Aronian (2808 points). Sergei Movsesian is 35th, Gabriel Sargissian is 65th and Vladimir Akopian is 71st. Among women, Elina Danielyan is 14th while Lilit Mkrtchyan is 31st. Armenia is ranked as 4th best chess playing country.

Vic “Raging Bull” Darchinyan (36-3-1, 27 KOs) wasted little time in devouring Colombia’s Yonnhy Perez with a barrage of punches before the fight was stopped due to an accidental clash of heads. Darchinyan captured the vacant IBO bantamweight world title on the score cards on April 23.