Deportivo Coruna’s woeful start to the season continued on Monday with a 3-0 defeat at promoted Real Sociedad that left them still winless in La Liga.
The Galician club, Spanish title winners in 2000 and Champions League semi-finalists as recently as 2004, have now lost four of their eight matches and drawn the rest and are mired in the relegation places on four points.
Joseba Llorente put the home side ahead in the 16th minute at the Anoeta stadium in San Sebastian with a pinpoint downward header from Alberto de la Bella’s center.
PHOTO: EPA
An unmarked Antoine Griezmann nodded in Sociedad’s second with 20 minutes to go, sparking an unusual celebration from the teenage striker when he jumped behind the wheel of a car on display on the running track around the pitch.
Imanol Agirretxe made it three in the 86th when he swept home a fine through ball from fellow substitute Jeffrey Sarpong.
Deportivo have sunk a long way since playing themselves to the brink of a place in the final of Europe’s elite club competition six years ago and are suffering the financial problems besetting many of Spain’s top clubs.
After finishing 10th last term, they were forced to sell one of their best players, defender Felipe Luis, to Atletico Madrid and had debts of 122 million euros (US$171 million) at the end of the 2008-09 season, according to a study by University of Barcelona accounting professor Jose Maria Gay published in May.
Deportivo’s latest defeat leaves coach Miguel Angel Lotina under serious pressure ahead of tomorrow’s King’s Cup first leg match at La Liga rivals Osasuna and Sunday’s home league match against fifth-placed Espanyol.
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
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with