■NETHERLANDS
Twente leapfrog PSV
FC Twente went top of the Dutch league on Sunday after Kenneth Perez scored the winner in a 1-0 victory over RKC Waalwijk. Perez headed home Bryan Ruiz’s curling cross in the 69th minute as Twente took full advantage of PSV Eindhoven’s 2-1 defeat at NAC Breda on Saturday. Twente lead the standings with 67 points, two more than PSV. Ajax, who face PSV in the next round of matches, are third with 61 points after beating Sparta Rotterdam 3-0 earlier on Sunday. “The next goal is to win the next game,” Twente coach Steven McClaren said. “We still have eight games to go. Who knows what will happen? There will be so many twists and turns.” Ajax’s goals came from Siem de Jong, Gregory van der Wiel and Dennis Rommedahl. Sekou Cisse scored twice and created another as Feyenoord topped Roda JC 4-2. Cisse opened scoring in the 14th minute from a rebound, before adding another goal in the 60th minute. He then set up Luigi Bruins for the third in the 71st minute. Substitute Roy Makaay added a fourth in the 82nd minute. Jeanvion Yulu Matondo and Boldizsar Bodor scored for Roda, who had Ruud Vormer sent off for a 20th-minute foul on Leroy Fer. Feyenoord goalkeeper Darley was also ejected in the 84th minute. Also on Sunday, it was FC Groningen 1, VVV-Venlo 0 and FC Utrecht 1, NEC Nijemegen 0.
■PORTUGAL
Benfica go three points clear
Benfica went three points clear at the top of the Portuguese league on Sunday after beating Pacos Ferreira 3-1. Ruben Amorim, Javier Saviola and Oscar Cardozo all scored for the hosts, while William Conceicao cut the deficit for Pacos Ferreira. The result leaves Benfica top on 55 points. Second-place Braga are on 52 points after being held 0-0 at Setubal on Saturday. Also on Sunday, fourth-place Sporting beat Belenenses 4-0 and Maritimo drew 0-0 with Academica. Third-placed Porto drew 2-2 with Olhanense on Saturday.
■CHINA
Corruption probe expands
The wide-ranging crackdown on corruption in soccer has expanded to referees and the women’s game as investigators cast a wider net to clean up the scandal-plagued sport, state press reported yesterday. Following the arrests of several top officials of the China Football Association on match-fixing and bribe-taking charges, numerous referees have gone missing and are believed to be in police custody, the Beijing Times said. “As far as the problems with referees, this is under investigation and it shows that the football industry is orderly and carrying out efforts to strike at match-fixing and gambling,” the paper quoted new CFA head Wei Di as saying. “We are not afraid of these things coming to light — the important thing now is to find out about these problems.” The paper said Shen Huangying, a woman who worked on top women’s matches at China’s National Games last year, was among the missing.
■BRAZIL
Piece of wood kills player
A futsal player has died following a match in Brazil after a piece of the court’s wooden floor came off and struck him in the abdomen. Globo’s G1 Web site says 23-year-old Robson Rocha Costa died of hemorrhagic shock on Sunday, a day after the accident in a friendly match in southern Brazil. Witnesses say Costa was hurt after a sliding tackle near the goal-line. A small piece of the court apparently came off as he was sliding, initially hitting his thigh and then making it to his intestines. Costa was immediately taken to hospital and underwent surgery, but succumbed to his injuries.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed