■FRANCE
Paris St Germain go third
Paris Saint Germain moved to third place in Ligue 1 on Sunday with a 1-0 win at the Parc des Princes over bottom club Nantes. Serbian midfielder Mateja Kezman, a former Partizan Belgrade, PSV Eindhoven and Chelsea player, converted a penalty after Guirane Ndaw fouled Guillaume Hoarau. The Paris club, who were playing without suspended captain Claude Makelele, dominated the game throughout, but were unable to penetrate a sturdy Nantes defense. “It was a difficult match, but we won. It’s good to be back to the leading bunch,” midfielder Stephane Sessegnon told French television channel Canal Plus. After three wins, a draw and a defeat, PSG are on 10 points, ahead of promoted Grenoble on goal difference. The Ligue 1 leaders are Olympique Lyon, who host Fiorentina in their Champions League opener tomorrow. Lyon came from behind to grab a 3-2 home win over Nice on Saturday thanks to a controversial free-kick and a stoppage time penalty.
■RUSSIA
Rubin Kazan edge Dynamo
Russian premier league leaders Rubin Kazan moved a step closer to their first title by beating Dynamo Moscow 1-0 in the top-of-the-table clash on Sunday. Former Ukraine striker Serhiy Rebrov, who joined Rubin from Dynamo Kiev in March, scored in the second minute to give the Kazan side 45 points from 21 matches and a nine-point lead over second-placed Dynamo with the same number of games remaining. Amkar Perm, 2-1 winners at Shinnik Yaroslavl, are third with 35 points. Serbia winger Milos Krasic scored twice to lead CSKA Moscow to a 4-1 rout of struggling Luch Vladivostok, lifting the army side to fourth place, also on 35 points. On Saturday, FK Moscow edged out city rivals Spartak 2-1 to spoil Michael Laudrup’s debut as Spartak coach. The former Denmark international, who played for Real Madrid and Barcelona in the 1990s, replaced Stanislav Cherchesov on Friday following a string of poor results. The defeat dropped Spartak to sixth place, 12 points behind the leaders. Champions Zenit St Petersburg crushed Terek Grozny 4-1 to stay in the title hunt by moving up to seventh on 31 points with a game in hand. The match was moved Grozny to nearby Makhachkala following an assault on a referee in their previous home game.
■GERMANY
Hanover score five goals
Former Germany striker Jan Schlaudraff recovered his scoring touch to help Hanover 96 get their season going at last with a 5-1 win over Borussia Munchengladbach on Sunday. Schlaudraff and Szabolcs Huszti each scored twice, while Mikael Forssell added a late penalty to give Hanover their first win of the season and propel them to 12th place with four points. Munchengladbach are a point behind them in 15th. VfL Bochum also moved out of the Bundesliga relegation places and into mid-table with a 2-0 win at home to Arminia Bielefeld.
■ENGLAND
Magpies put up for sale
Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley announced on Sunday he wanted to sell the troubled English Premier League club. Ashley, a self-made millionaire, has become a hate figure with many of the northeast side’s supporters, who blame him for the resignation of popular manager Kevin Keegan. “I am putting the club up for sale,” Ashley said in a statement. “I hope that the fans can get what they want and that the next owner is someone who can lavish the amount of money on the club that the fans want.”
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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