■SOCCER
Zobahan lose, but advance
Only five spots remain to be filled in the next stage of the Asian Champions League after Iranian clubs Zobahan and Esteghlal and Qatar’s Al Gharafa all progressed on Wednesday to the last 16. Zobahan were on a roll after home and away victories over Luiz Felipe Scolari’s Uzbek giants Bunyodkor, but their winning run came to an end in a shock 1-0 defeat to last place Al Wahda in Group B. Zobahan secured their place in the next round with a match to spare, however, when Al Ittihad and Bunyodkor drew 1-1 in Jeddah, meaning they cannot finish lower than second in the group. Bunyodkor, Asia’s richest club, must now beat Wahda in their last match later this month to have any chance of continuing Scolari’s ambition of adding the Asian continental club title to his World Cup triumph as coach of Brazil in 2002. Esteghlal had a 2-1 home win over Saudi club Al Ahli to move onto 11 points, one ahead of second place Gharafa, giving both clubs enough points to advance from Group A. Gharafa beat Al Jazira of the UAE 4-2.
■TENNIS
Schiavone wins in Barcelona
Top-seeded Francesca Schiavone advanced to the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Ladies Open with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over fellow Italian Tathiana Garbin on Wednesday. Three other seeded players fell by the wayside, though, with Arantxa Parra Santonja producing the upset of the day by defeating third seed Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 in an all-Spanish second round match. Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan rallied to beat fourth-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 and Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic ousted fifth-seeded Sorana Cirstea of Romania, 6-1, 6-4. Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro, seeded seventh, saw off Kristina Barrois of Germany in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5.
■FORMULA ONE
Ecclestone touts Sochi race
Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone said yesterday he is pushing hard to take Formula One to Russia’s Sochi as contracts with some European cities that soon run out will not be renewed. Ecclestone has reportedly said he was also bidding to take the sport back to the US, hopefully to New York for 2012. “We’ve got two or three places in Russia which we’re dealing with at the moment,” Ecclestone told reporters before touring a circuit being built in South Korea for its first race in October. “There is a big push for us to do something with Sochi.” The Russian resort city will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
■SOCCER
PSG end minnows dreams
Paris St Germain ended minnows Quevilly’s amazing French Cup run by beating the amateur side 1-0 to reach the final on Wednesday. The fourth division club fought valiantly until Mevlut Erding broke the deadlock in the 53rd minute by heading home the winner. PSG will face Monaco in the final. Quevilly had knocked out Ligue 1 sides Stade Rennes and Boulogne on their way to the last four and so confident were their fans of pulling off another shock win, many of them had already bought tickets for the May 1 final at Stade de France. PSG manager Antoine Kombouare paid tribute to the amateurs from Normandy, saying: “We knew we had to respect Quevilly and they showed why tonight by giving us a hard time.” Quevilly, a side from a Rouen suburb, hosted PSG in Caen, 120km away from their home, because their own stadium did not meet safety standards.
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