■NETHERLANDS
Twente hit four to stay top
FC Twente beat FC Groningen 4-0 on Sunday to stay top of the Dutch league and extend their unbeaten run to 11 games. Groningen never recovered after Miroslav Stoch and Dwight Tiendalli scored two early goals. Blaise Nkufo converted a 62nd-minute penalty for Twente’s third, following the dismissal of goalkeeper Brian van Loo, while Bryan Ruiz completed the rout with his team’s fourth in the 80th minute. Also on Sunday, Ajax beat AZ Alkmaar 4-2 to go second in the standings. AZ’s Mounir El Hamdaoui put his team in front in the 28th minute after collecting a pass from Brett Holman. Urby Emanuelson’s equalizer in the 57th minute, however, signaled the start of a dramatic Ajax comeback, with Luis Suarez and Gregory van der Wiel scoring inside nine minutes to put Martin Jol’s side 3-1 up. Two goals followed in injury-time, with Suarez scoring his second of the day, before Graziano Pelle pulled one back for AZ. Balazs Dzsudzsak, Jonathan Reis and Otman Bakkal each scored in PSV Eindhoven’s 4-0 win over NEC Nijmegen. Danko Lazovic also converted a second-half penalty for PSV. Also on Sunday, it was Willem II 4, SC Heerenveen 1.
■RUSSIA
Rubin Kazan grab away win
Reigning champions Rubin Kazan consolidated their league lead with a 2-1 away win at Rostov on Sunday. Kazan now have 53 points from 26 matches, one point ahead of second-placed Spartak Moscow. Zenit St Petersburg sit third on 47 points. Kazan opened the scoring in the 16th minute through Argentine midfielder Alejandro Dominguez. Argentine defender Christian Ansaldi added the second just before the break, beating Rostov keeper Veniamin Mandrykin with a powerful shot from outside the box. The hosts’ Bosnian striker Mersudin Ahmetovic reduced the arrears just after the restart, but failed to save the day for Rostov as Kazan managed to hold onto their narrow lead. Meanwhile, nine-time champions Spartak Moscow beat hosts Khimki 3-0, effectively dashing the home side’s slight hopes of staying in the top flight next season. Brazilian striker Welliton lifted Spartak 1-0 up in the ninth minute, sending home a rebound after fellow striker Nikita Bazhenov’s long-range shot. Another 25m drive by defender Sergei Parshivlyuk made it 2-0 for Spartak two minutes before the break. Welliton from a corner with two minutes to go. Third-placed Zenit St Petersburg failed to extend their six-match winning streak as they were held to a 2-2 draw by minnows Nalchik.
■PORTUGAL
Porto survive tense finish
FC Porto moved to within three points of Portuguese league leaders Braga on Sunday after beating Academica 3-2. One second-half goal from Mariano Gonzalez and two from Farias were enough to clinch three points, although a late goal by Academica’s Moudou Sougou ensured a tense finish. Also on Sunday, Setubal beat Leixoes 1-0 and Maritimo beat Pacos Ferreira 3-1.
■MEXICO
Big match screened in 3D
Excited Mexicans clutching buckets of popcorn and soft drinks in cinemas ducked whenever the ball was kicked toward them as they watched Sunday’s big game between America and Guadalajara in 3D. At the packed Azteca, thousands more had a more traditional view of the match, which finished 1-0 to America. “It was incredible,” 25-year-old Claudia Fernandez said. “I’d already seen films in this format, but watch a football match, never, and I don’t regret it because it’s much more exciting.”
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