Former Real Madrid striker Ronaldo scored the winning goal as Brazilian club Corinthians beat Cerro Porteno of Paraguay 1-0 on Wednesday to take charge of Group 1 of the Copa Libertadores.
In the day’s other matches, Universidad de Chile beat Flamengo of Brazil 2-1, while Monterrey against Once Caldas and Caracas against Universidad Catolica ended in draws.
Ronaldo’s strike at the back post following a low corner in the 41st minute was enough to get the three points for Corinthians against Cerro Porteno, who finished the match with 10 men following a red card for Jorge Britez in the 83rd minute.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The win put Corinthians four points clear of Uruguay’s Nacional at the top of the group.
Eduardo Vargas gave Universidad de Chile the lead at home against Flamengo in the 43rd minute in Group 8.
Rodrigo Alvim equalized for Flamengo in the 51st minute, but Felipe Seymour notched the winner for Universidad four minutes later.
The win pushed the Chilean club a point ahead of Flamengo at the top of the group after three games played.
Also in Group 8, Venezuela’s Caracas and Chile’s Universidad Catolica played out a scoreless draw to leave both with a difficult task to reach the knockout stages.
Caracas are bottom of the group with one point, while Universidad Catolica have two points.
Dayro Moreno gave Colombian club Once Caldas the lead away to Mexico’s Monterrey in the second minute in Group 2.
Osvaldo Martinez leveled for Monterrey from the penalty spot in the 18th minute, before Neri Cardozo put the Mexican club ahead with a strike in the 47th minute. Jaime Castrillon secured a share of the points for Once Caldas with a 67th-minute equalizer.
Once Caldas moved two points clear of Sao Paulo at the top of the group with eight points from four games, with Monterrey in third place on five points.
The Copa Libertadores is the top club competition in Latin America. The eight group winners and six best-placed runners-up qualify for the round-of-16 knockout stage.
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