Penalized Fiorentina and AC Milan failed to improve their lowly standings on Saturday as Alberto Gilardino and Adrian Mutu scored a brace for each side in a pulsating 2-2 draw at Florence's Artemio Franchi stadium
Gilardino scored an 89th-minute equalizer to earn AC Milan a share of the spoils.
The Italy forward, who also scored the game's opening goal in the fourth minute, headed in a corner with the final action of the match.
Adrian Mutu scored twice for Fiorentina, with a 20th-minute penalty and shot from the edge of the area in the 76th.
Also on Saturday, 10-man Udinese beat visiting Cagliari 3-1 in the only other Serie A match.
Milan was missing seven players through injury -- including goalkeeper Dida and defenders Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini -- but midfielder Gennaro Gattuso started for the first time since hurting his knee last month.
Andrea Pirlo (suspension), Kaka (foot injury) and Kakha Kaladze (knee injury) also returned after missing last Sunday's scoreless draw with Torino.
Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti persisted with Gilardino in attack, despite the striker's apparent lack of confidence in recent months. Gilardino, making his 14th league appearance of the season, repaid Ancelotti's trust early on by latching onto Cristian Brocchi's through-ball for his first goal.
Mutu equalized for the hosts from the penalty spot after defender Kaladze handled the ball in the area.
The Romania forward deservedly put Fiorentina ahead, after Milan goalkeeper Zeljko Kalac had stopped three earlier attempts.
Gilardino snatched Milan's seventh draw of the season with his second goal.
"It was important to recover a game that started well," Gilardino said. "Above all, the equalizer was very important for morale. There's still a lot to improve on. We must take it game by game ... but Milan is still alive and has so much desire to show it."
Fiorentina coach Cesare Prandelli was disappointed with the draw.
"There's a bitter taste in the mouth," Prandelli said. "It was a good performance, we were leading with a minute to go ... But I'd like to compliment Gilardino because he deserves it. Great champions can come across moments of difficulty but he has always given his all to the team."
At Stadio Friuli, Giampiero Pinzi, Vincenzo Iaquinta and Christian Obodo scored in Udinese's first win in four games.
Iaquinta set up Pinzi from close range in the 17th minute and made it 2-0 in the 27th.
Obodo's goal in the 52nd was the best of the three. Winger Antonio Di Natale spotted the Nigeria midfielder's run into the box and passed the ball behind Cagliari's defense.
Cagliari worked hard but rarely threatened, despite the expulsion of Udinese's Sulley Muntari seconds before halftime for a bad tackle on midfielder Andrea Capone.
Striker Andrea Cocco scored a consolation goal for the visitors in the 82nd minute, stabbing the ball in off a corner.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier