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Rome, April 12 (IANS): Inter Milan moved closer to the Serie A championship after a 1-0 hard-win over Cagliari while Juventus claimed the second consecutive victory by dispatching Genoa 3-1 at Allianz Stadium.
It took a while for Inter Milan to break Cagliari, as Alexis Sanchez's goal was ruled out for offside, Stefan de Vrij's header rattled the crossbar while Cagliari's goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario marked his Serie A debut with a string of stunning saves on Sunday, Xinhua news reported.
The goal came in the 76th minute and Achraf Hakimi moved into the box after a combination with Romelu Lukaku, the Moroccan then squared for Matteo Darmian to slide in at the back post.
The Nerazzurri comfortably sits at the top with the 11th successive victory, 11 points ahead of AC Milan who beat Parma 3-1 on Saturday.
In a later fixture between Juve and Genoa, the Bianconeri took an early lead as Juan Cuadrado broke into the box and pulled back for Dejan Kulusevski to finish with a left-footed curler.
The home side doubled the lead in the 22nd minute when Federico Chiesa won back possession and surged forward, his first attempt was smothered by Mattia Perin, before Cristiano Ronaldo followed to hit the upright, but Alvaro Morata collected the rebound to get the job done.
The Old Lady was seemingly error-prone in the second half, as Juve's potential transfer target Gianluca Scamacca found the net with a header just three minutes after the break.
The Grifone then had two huge chances as Marko Pjaca forced a one-handed save out of Wojciech Szczesny, minutes before he ballooned over a sitter.
Juve then punished the wasteful Genoa as substitute Weston McKennie sprung the offside trap to beat Perin one-on-one.
The race for the Champions League spots was intensified as Juve ranks third with 62 points, Atalanta who squeezed past Fiorentina 3-2 is only one point adrift of Juve, while fifth-placed Napoli collected 59 points after winning 2-0 away to Sampdoria.
All the top-seven teams had good results on Sunday, as Sergej Milinkovic-Savic's last-gasp winner helped Lazio beat Hellas Verona 1-0 while another Rome-based team Roma remains seventh place after beating Bologna with the same scoreline.