Bruno Montelongo scored two minutes from regulation time on Thursday to give Uruguayan club River Plate a 2-1 win over Bolivia’s Blooming and a place in the last 16 of the Copa Sudamericana.
The match was scoreless until the 80th minute, when Jorge Cordoba gave River Plate the lead with a well-timed volley.
Jose Luis Chavez scored an equalizer from a corner in the 86th for Blooming before Montelongo’s winner in the 88th.
PHOTO: AP
In Thursday’s other match, Hernan Peirone scored a last-minute winner for 10-man Emelec of Ecuador in a 2-1 defeat of Venezuelan club Zamora.
Giovanni Perez opened the scoring for Zamora in the 25th minute and the Venezuelan club gained an advantage nine minutes later when Emelec’s Jose Quinonez was sent off.
Emelec rallied in the second half, when Franco Mendoza skipped inside Daniel Valdes to equalize at the near post in the 71st minute.
Peirone scored a breakaway winner as Zamora committed players forward in search of a decisive second goal.
The Copa Sudamericana is South America’s No. 2 club tournament after the Copa Libertadores.
Thursday’s results meant River and Emelec became the ninth and tenth clubs to qualify for the tournament’s last 16, with the remaining preliminary round fixtures next month.
River were awarded a 3-0 win in the first leg in Bolivia after a Blooming supporter ran onto the pitch and attacked River forward Henry Gimenez, causing the match to be abandoned just after the hour mark. River were leading 1-0 at the time.
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