Borussia Dortmund's struggles continued in the Bundesliga on Sunday when they lost 2-1 away to lowly Hansa Rostock.
Three days after exiting the UEFA Cup with a 4-0 thrashing by French side Sochaux, the 1997 European champions suffered another blow to fall 11 points behind league leaders VfB Stuttgart.
The Ruhr Valley club, who remain fifth, were the only side in the top six of the championship to lose this weekend.
Striker Martin Max scored both goals for Rostock, who have now gone four matches without defeat and climb to 13th, opening the scoring on 54 minutes before hitting the winner with three minutes left.
Brazilian striker Ewerthon had equalized in the 66th minute for Dortmund, who have been heavily hit by injuries.
Hertha Berlin dropped to second from bottom after a 3-1 home defeat by Schalke 04 in Sunday's other game.
The capital club, who had started the season with hopes of qualifying for the Champions League, scored first through midfielder Denis Lapaczinski in the 37th minute.
But Schalke, who gained a measure of consolation after being knocked out of the UEFA Cup by Danish side Brondby on Thursday, stepped up a gear after the break.
Goals from Niels Oude Kamphuis, Tomasz Waldoch and Gerald Asamoah helped the Gelsenkirchen climb two spots to 11th.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with