■ FRANCE
Rennes stay in sixth place
Goals from Carlos Bocanegra and Jimmy Briand earned Rennes a 2-0 victory over Auxerre in Ligue 1 on Sunday to keep them firmly in the race for a European spot. Bocanegra headed in a cross from Mickael Pagis in the ninth minute and Briand tucked home another cross from Pagis in the 36th minute to keep Rennes in sixth place. Araujo Ilan struck twice to lead St Etienne to a 2-1 comeback victory over Nantes. The Brazilian striker converted a penalty in the 11th minute after Guillaume Moullec handled the ball and then picked his spot from 27m to fire into the top corner in the 30th minute. Croatia forward Ivan Klasnic had given Nantes a sixth minute lead, nodding in a free-kick from Frederic Da Rocha and teammate Yohann Poulard nearly equalized for Nantes in the 80th minute with a header that struck the crossbar. St Etienne moved out of the relegation zone with the win. Last-place Le Havre came back from a goal down to beat fellow relegation battlers Sochaux 2-1.
■ PORTUGAL
Benfica stay behind Porto
Pablo Aimar and Costas Katsouranis scored on Sunday to help Benfica beat Naval 2-1 and hold on to second place. Aimar set Benfica on the way to their first away win for three months by firing home in the third minute after the Naval defense failed to clear a free-kick by Jose Antonio Reyes. Naval equalized in the 53rd minute through substitute Marcelinho’s angled shot, only for Katsouranis to head home following another Reyes free-kick in the 74th minute. Benfica, aiming to win the title for the first time since 2005, trail defending champions Porto by two points. Also on Sunday it was Amadora 2, Braga 2; Academica 1, Trofense 0; and Guimaraes 3, Belenenses 1.
■ GREECE
Violence overshadows draw
League leaders Olympiakos played out a goalless draw at PAOK Thessaloniki on Sunday in a match that was overshadowed by violent clashes between fans and police. Seven riot police and five PAOK fans were injured in clashes that flared outside the stadium both before and after the game. Supporters threw rocks, bottles and firebombs at police, who responded with tear gas. PAOK fans had been angered by what they claimed was bad refereeing in a Greek Cup game between the two sides last Wednesday. Also on Sunday, it was Thrasivoulos 1, Ergotelis 3; OFI 0, Levadiakos 2; Panserraikos 1, AEK 5; and Xanthi 1, Panthrakikos 0.
■ BRAZIL
Ronaldo grabs equalizer
Brazilian striker Ronaldo scored his first goal for Corinthians on Sunday having played for the first time in more than a year last week following a serious knee injury. The 32-year-old World Cup winner and three-time FIFA World Player of the Year came on after an hour in the 1-1 draw against Sao Paulo. Ronaldo headed home in the second minute of injury-time for the equalizer to send the supporters into frenzied celebrations.
■ RUSSIA
CSKA edge Rubin Kazan
CSKA Moscow edged Rubin Kazan 2-1 in extra-time to lift the Russian Super Cup on Sunday, Tomas Necid’s late volley securing victory in the traditional curtain-raiser for the league season. Lithuanian defender Deividas Semberas slotted home a rebound to give CSKA the lead in the 43rd minute at the Luzhniki Stadium, before Roman Sharanov equalized for the league champions after an hour. The teams remained locked in a stalemate until second-half substitute Necid scored the winning goal in the 113th minute.
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