Napoli condemned Serie A leaders Juventus to their second defeat of the season, ending their 23-match unbeaten streak with a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Jose Callejon and Dries Mertens.
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Rafael Benitez's men may be a distant 17 points off the championship pace, yet Roma have a game in hand and could cut Juve's lead to only eight points by beating Parma on Wednesday.
The leaders will have 18-goal striker Carlos Tevez -- suspended in Naples, leaving Juve rather toothless in attack -- back for the run-in and ought to clinch enough wins from seven games to claim their third straight Scudetto.
Roma kept up their pursuit of Juve with a 2-0 victory over relegation-threatened Sassuolo at Stadio Citta del Tricoloreto.
The second-placed visitors took a half-time lead through Mattia Destro before Michel Bastos added a second deep into second-half stoppage time to ensure a fourth straight win for Rudi Garcia's men.
The result saw Roma close the gap on Juve to 11 points, while second-bottom Sassuolo - who have won just once in the last 12 matches - remained five points adrift of safety.
Antonio Candreva's stoppage-time winner helped Lazio creep closer to the Europa League places with a 3-2 home victory over Parma.
The Gialloblu were unbeaten in 17 games until losing to Juventus in midweek and their second straight defeat allowed Lazio to close to within two points of their current position of sixth in the Serie A table.
Jonathan Biabiany cancelled out Senad Lulic's opener before Michael Ciani's own-goal brought Parma level once again following Miroslav Klose's second-half effort, but Italy winger Candreva decided the outcome at the death.
The shared points from a goalless draw between Sampdoria and Fiorentina at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris will do little to boost the short-term ambitions of either club.
Samp were targeting the top half of the Serie A table after winning their last two games while Fiorentina still hope to chase down third-placed Napoli and snatch the last Champions League place.
Manolo Gabbiadini and Eder might have won it for Sinisa Mihajlovic's hosts and La Viola spurned several late chances to bag all three points -- Borja Valero and Alessandro Matri proving particularly wasteful in Genoa.
Torino took full advantage of Cagliari's woeful away record to claim a 2-1 win that kept them in contention for a Europa League place.
Goals in either half from Omar El Kaddouri and Alessio Cerci set up Torino's win, before Nene grabbed a rare away goal for Cagliari.
Luca Toni scored twice as 10-man Hellas Verona finally snapped a dismal run of Serie A defeats with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Genoa at the Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi.
Verona had not won -- or scored -- since beating Livorno on Feb. 23 and four straight losses had dropped the early-season surprise package down to 10th place.
Marco Donadel did what no Gialloblu player had done in five-and-a-half matches when opening the scoring and, despite the fact Verona lost Michaelangelo Albertazzi to a red card, Toni's double put the hosts out of sight late on.