West Bromwich Albion were left four points adrift at the bottom of the Premier League after an uninspiring goalless draw away to West Ham United at Upton Park on Monday.
The visitors had the best chances of the match. Shelton Martis hit the bar, while ex-Manchester United midfielder Jonathan Greening shot over the top from 6m out and James Morrison saw his effort saved by West Ham goalkeeper Robert Green.
West Ham, who remained seventh in the table, rarely threatened to score against Tony Mowbray’s basement club in a low-grade contest that seemingly did little for the Baggies’ hopes of top-flight survival.
“I think I probably should have put my chance away and got us all three points,” Greening told Setanta Sports. “We knew it was going to be a difficult game, Gianfranco Zola has got them playing well, but I thought we did all right tonight. We’ve been working hard all season.”
Mowbray said that there had been no difference in their level of performance from recent matches.
“I don’t think it was an improved performance — the defense was better, but the performance was what we get most weeks. We missed some chances and it’s a very disappointed changing room there. But it’s something to build on.”
There was a worrying moment for the already injury-hit Hammers when center-back Matthew Upson went off in the first half with a leg problem.
But the good news for manager Gianfranco Zola was that Upson was later seen walking freely after being carried off on a stretcher.
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