Hamburg SV dropped to fourth place yesterday when they were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Hanover 96 in their first game back after the Bundesliga's six-week break.

Hamburg, looking creaky in defence and hesitant going forward, fell behind in the 40th minute when Hungarian midfielder Szabolcs Huszti converted a penalty.

The home side grabbed the equaliser through Ivica Olic with 20 minutes still to go but they could do nothing to avoid a fourth successive league match without a win.

The result meant Hamburg slipped six points behind Bayern Munich, who strengthened their position on Friday when they won 2-1 at Hansa Rostock with goals from Franck Ribery and Luca Toni.

Bayern lead the table with 39 points from 18 games. Werder Bremen, with 36 from 17, will draw level once again if they win their home match against Bochum today.

Bayer Leverkusen moved up to third on 33 points, ahead of Hamburg on goal difference, after coming from behind to win 3-2 away to Energie Cottbus.

The individual performance of the day came from 20-year-old Czech striker Martin Fenin, who joined Eintracht Frankfurt from Teplice over the winter break.

Fenin struck a brilliant hat-trick on his debut to give Frankfurt a 3-0 win away to Hertha Berlin.

Hamburg could have done with a striker in that sort of form. They saw plenty of the ball in the first half but the best chances fell to Hanover.

Mike Hanke, Jiri Stajner and Arnold Bruggink all brought good saves from Frank Rost before Guy Demel's trip on Christian Schulz gave Huszti the opportunity to score from the spot.

Huszti almost made it 2-0 in the 54th minute when he raced clear down the left and smacked the post.

Hanover were made to pay for that miss when Robert Enke blocked a shot from Rafael van der Vaart and Olic scored on the rebound.

The visitors, who had Sergio Pinto sent off for retaliation a minute from time, held on doggedly for a point.