Michael Essien scored twice on Saturday as Chelsea romped to a 4-0 win over Wolves to lead the Premier League by five points, while Arsenal tumbled 1-0 at Sunderland.
Liverpool and Manchester City fell further out of contention after a 2-2 draw.
Goals by Florent Malouda and Essien put injury-hit Chelsea 3-0 up against Wolverhampton Wanderers inside the first 22 minutes, before Joe Cole scored his first goal in 13 months in the second half.
The result meant that Chelsea have won all seven of their home games and haven’t conceded a goal at Stamford Bridge since the opening match of the season against Hull City.
Darren Bent scored a 71st-minute winner for Sunderland in a surprise victory over Arsenal, who had won six of their previous seven league games, but were left on 25 points from 12 games.
While Liverpool and Manchester City shared a point each at Anfield, the result did not help either team’s chances of catching Chelsea in the title race.
Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel, who had a header acrobatically saved by goalkeeper Shay Given in the first half, turned home a free-kick by Steven Gerrard in the 50th minute for his first goal for the club.
Beaten to the ball by Skrtel for the Liverpool goal, Adebayor was left unmarked by the Slovakia defender and was allowed a free header from a 69th-minute corner to score the equalizer.
Stephen Ireland was also left unmarked to prod home Shaun Wright-Phillips’ pass and put City ahead in the 76th minute, but Yossi Benayoun made it 2-2 seconds later from close range after good work by David Ngog.
Aston Villa came from a goal down to draw 1-1 at Burnley where they have not won in 24 visits dating back to 1936.
Steven Caldwell gave Burnley a ninth-minute lead at Turf Moor, only for Emile Heskey to equalize in the 86th minute.
Lee Bowyer scored Birmingham City’s 16th-minute winner in a 1-0 victory over Fulham at St Andrews and there was a six-goal thriller between Hull City and West Ham United.
Visitors West Ham went two goals up in the first 11 minutes through Guillermo Franco and Jack Collison, only for Hull to hit back three times to lead at halftime. Jimmy Bullard’s free-kick was deflected in, Kamil Zayatte made it 2-2 and Bullard scored his first goal for Hull from the penalty spot after Julien Faubert had fouled Craig Fagan.
Hull’s Brendan Mendy was sent off in the 54th minute and Manuel Da Costa scored the Irons’ equalizer in the 69th 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
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