■ ENGLAND
Wolves go six points clear
Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Mick McCarthy insisted his players would not get carried away despite extending their lead at the top of the English Championship to six points. Wolves’ 2-0 win over Burnley at Molineux on Saturday combined with Birmingham City’s solitary point away at Nottingham Forest put McCarthy’s men in pole position for a return to the Premier League after a five-year absence. But former Republic of Ireland coach McCarthy is determined not to let his team rest on their laurels. “We didn’t get carried away when we lost three and we are not getting carried away now we have won a few,” McCarthy said. “You just keep trying to win games. We work for each other.”
■BRAZIL
Sao Paulo leave it late
Sao Paulo twice lost the lead before scoring a late winner to beat Portuguesa 3-2 and stay top of the Brazilian championship on Saturday. Attempting to win the title for the third year in a row, Sao Paulo lead with 65 points from 34 games. Borges gave Sao Paulo an eighth minute lead when he snapped up a rebound after Gottardi failed to hold Jorge Wagner’s free-kick. Jonas equalized with a classy finish from the edge of the penalty area in the 42nd minute, only for Borges to put Sao Paulo back in front in first-half stoppage time following a one-two with Dagoberto. Jonas replied again in the 73rd minute, heading in Heverton’s cross at the far post, but the visitors snatched victory in the 89th minute when Ze Luis headed in a corner at the near post.
■NETHERLANDS
NEC defeat PSV, go fifth
Peter Wisgerhof’s first-half goal was enough to give NEC Nijmegen a 1-0 win over PSV Eindoven in the Dutch League on Saturday. Wisgerhof collected Bas Sibum’s pass to score the winner in the 12th minute, moving NEC up to fifth place with 18 points. PSV stayed fourth with 18 points, four behind leaders NAC Breda, who beat De Graafschap 2-0 on Friday to return to the top of the league standings. In Saturday’s other games, Said Boutahar scored in the 28th minute and 74th minute in Willem II’s 2-1 win over struggling Roda JC, while Heracles Almelo drew 0-0 against Vitesse Arnhem.
■GREECE
PAOK beat Panionios, go top
Vladan Ivic and Zlatan Muslimovic scored on Saturday to help PAOK beat Panionios 2-0 in the Greek league. PAOK lead the standings with 19 points alongside Olympiakos. Ivic gave PAOK the lead from the penalty spot in the 36th minute and Muslimovic doubled the lead in the 90th minute with his fifth goal of the season. Xanthi drew 1-1 at home with AEK Athens to drop from second to third place with 18 points and OFI won 2-1 at Panserraikos. Dorival scored with a 35m shot in the 35th minute to give Xanthi the lead, but Ismael Blanco equalized for AEK with a shot off a cross from Martin Scocco in the 62nd minute.
■TUNISIA
Etoile Sahel force a draw
Etoile Sahel are favorites to lift the African Confederation Cup after forcing a 0-0 draw at title holders CS Sfaxien on Saturday in the first-leg of an all-Tunisian final. The visitors had the best chance to break the deadlock during the first half, when Nigeria-born striker Emeka Opara broke clear only to be denied by goalkeeper Jassem Khaloufi. Sfaxien managed to create several clear cut scoring chances during the second half, but an Etoile team playing only their second match under caretaker French coach Herve Gauthier survived.
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