Fiorentina moved back into Champions League contention with a 2-1 home win over Catania on Sunday as they reclaimed fourth spot in Serie A from AC Milan.
Zradko Kuzmanovic gave Fiorentina the lead after 41 minutes heading in a Mario Alberto Santana cross.
But Catania levelled on the hour when Juan Vargas unleashed a powerful long-range drive which was too hot for goalkeeper Vlada Avramov to handle.
PHOTO: AFP
It was a tough top flight debut for Avramov, who had replaced Sebastien Frey, who had picked up a thigh injury, in the first half.
Romanian striker Adrian Mutu, however, hit his 14 league goal of the season to give Fiorentina the three points with a 20m strike.
Fiorentina now have 41 points, three more than Milan, who were held to a 0-0 draw by Parma on Saturday.
PHOTO: AFP
Sampdoria won the Genoa derby, and kept their UEFA Cup qualification hopes alive, with a 1-0 victory thanks to an 87th-minute winner from Christian Maggio after the home side were reduced to 10 men following the sending off of Brazilian defender Danilo.
On Saturday, Inter Milan took another huge step closer to the title after extending their lead at the top to 11 points.
Defending champions Inter saw off Livorno 2-0 at the San Siro while closest challengers Roma lost 1-0 at third-place Juventus.
There was also disappointment for AC Milan who could not provide veteran defender Paolo Maldini with a victory on his 1,000th match in professional soccer as they drew 0-0 at lowly Parma.
Roma missed the chance to keep pace with the champions as veteran Juve forward Alessandro Del Piero's bullet free-kick on the stroke of half-time settled the match.
It means Juve are just a point behind Roma in third and will rest up in midweek as Roma tackle Real Madrid in the Champions League.
Del Piero rifled an unstoppable shot into the top corner after Pavel Nedved had drawn a foul from French center-back Philippe Mexes just over 20m from goal.
The closest Roma came to equalizing was straight after the goal as Juve defender Nicola Legrottaglie turned a cross from Rodrigo Taddei onto his own post.
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