MILAN, Italy (AFP) — Tenacious Torino held Roma to a 1-1 draw at home to stop the leaders’ all-time record of consecutive wins at the start of a Serie A season to 10 yesterday.

Roma travelled to the Olympic Stadium with hopes of restoring their five-point lead over title rivals Napoli and Juventus, who closed the gap to two points with wins over Parma and Catania respectively on Saturday.

However, Alessio Cerci’s second half toe-poke was enough to secure a share of the spoils, and bring Torino some welcome headlines, when it levelled Kevin Strootman’s first-half opener for the visitors.

Roma, still unbeaten and having conceded only their second goal in 11 games, remain top on 31 points with a three-point lead on both Napoli and champions Juventus with Inter and Verona a further six points off the pace.

Roma have become the team to watch so far this season following the appointment of French coach Rudi Garcia.

But while in with the chance of claiming an 11th consecutive win to match the best ever start to a season by any team, namely Tottenham in the 1960-61 season, in the top five European leagues, Torino had other ideas.

Dutch midfielder Strootman gave Roma a 28th-minute lead when he beat Daniele Padelli in the hosts’ goal with a curling left-foot strike.

However Torino launched wave after wave of attack, and their efforts finally paid off just after the hour when Cerci poked the ball into the net from close range after Riccardo Meggiorini had done well on the left to keep possession under pressure from Mehdi Benatia.

Earlier Sunday Lazio’s recent revival came to a grinding halt with a 2-0 defeat by Genoa at the Olympic Stadium, while Inter Milan put three unanswered goals past Udinese on a rain-hit trip north.

Elsewhere, Domenico Berardi made it a Sunday to remember for Sassuolo, the striker scoring a hat-trick, including a late penalty, to help the Serie A new boys dominate a seven-goal thriller away to struggling Sampdoria.

Verona meanwhile continued their strong start to the campaign with a 2-1 win at home to Cagliari which moved the promoted side up to fifth at the expense of Fiorentina, 2-0 winners over AC Milan at the San Siro on Saturday.

For Roma’s Olympic Stadium neighbours Lazio, it is back to the drawing board.

Vladimir Petkovic’s men looked to have put a recent slump behind them with a home win over Cagliari and a draw away to Milan in the past 10 days.

However, the Biancocelesti paid the price for missing several chances in the first half when broke the deadlock on the hour and Alberto Gilardino doubled the visitors’ lead 12 minutes later from the spot.

Lazio’s fourth reverse left them in seventh, 16 points behind Roma and seven adrift of Verona.