Both lost to young Romanian players who stayed steady as their opponents were unable to find their range.
The loyalists, disciplined but hemmed into an ever-shrinking corner of the city, held off hundreds of their opponents with steady sniper fire and precise mortar and rocket strikes.
In recent years, Cotto has been doing battle with a steady stream of marquee opponents, a list that includes Shane Mosley, whom Cotto defeated in 2007 to retain his W.B.A. welterweight crown, and Antonio Margarito, who took that title away from him in 2008.
Indeed, Cotto has been doing battle with a steady stream of marquee opponents in recent years, a list that includes Shane Mosley, whom Cotto defeated in 2007 to retain his W.B.A. welterweight crown, and Antonio Margarito, who took that title away from him in 2008.
Mr. Hollande is a firm supporter of Greece's remaining with the euro and a vocal opponent of a steady diet of austerity for the suffering countries of the European periphery, not to speak of his own.
Neither had to do much except appear steady and calm, while their opponent floundered to explain a policy stance that had immediately become poisonously unpopular.
In the month since he replaced Senator Robert G. Torricelli as the Democratic nominee, Mr. Lautenberg has built a steady lead over his Republican opponent, Douglas R. Forrester.
He gambles less -- he had no steals in the three games against Toronto -- but makes it hard on opponents with his steady on-the-ball defense.
It is not safe to assume that turnout will be at some uniform rate among supporters of the various candidates; in South Carolina and Colorado, for instance, counties that tended to support Mr. Romney reported fairly low turnout, while those that tended to support his opponents showed it steady or increasing.
