Socceroos benefit from China draw
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China has played out a scoreless draw with Qatar in their World Cup qualifier in Doha, giving Australia a three-point advantage at the top of Group 1 with seven points.
China owes its point to the performance of goalkeeper Zhen Song, who pulled off some key saves to give his team its third successive draw.
Australia beat Iraq 1-0 in Brisbane on Saturday and has two wins and a draw from its three matches.
Uzbekistan smashed seven goals past Singapore and Bahrain won in Thailand as they remained the only teams with perfect records.
Japan also took another step along the road to South Africa in 2010 by trouncing Oman 3-0 in Yokohama, with Celtic midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura scoring one goal and helping create another.
But it was not enough to put it on top of its group, with Bahrain's 3-2 win over Thailand in Bangkok moving it three points clear of Japan with three games left to play.
Uzbekistan's 7-3 victory over Singapore started as an edge-of-the-seat thriller.
Singapore twice equalised in the early stages and then took an unexpected lead before a Server Djeparov double and another from Vitaliy Denisov sent Uzibekistan in at half-time 5-2 ahead.
Aziz Ibragimov and Maksim Shatskikh completed the Uzbeks' scoring spree after the restart.
Jordan's shock 2-2 draw with South Korea leaves it second in Group 3 with four points, one behind South Korean and North Korea, who had a scoreless draw with Turkmenistan in Ashgabat.
In Group 5, pacesetters United Arab Emirates were unable to penetrate Iran as they played out a scoreless draw in Tehran.
- AFP
