Real Madrid extended their dominance over city rivals Atletico and maintained their one-point lead at the top of La Liga when Ricardo Carvalho and Mesut Ozil scored in a 2-0 home win on Sunday.
Barcelona had moved two points clear with a 3-1 success at Getafe, with Lionel Messi, David Villa and Pedro netting for the champions, before Jose Mourinho’s Real snuffed out Atletico’s bid for a first Madrid derby win in more than a decade.
Real have 26 points from 10 games, Barca are second on 25 and Villarreal, who fought back from a goal down at home to beat Athletic Bilbao 4-1, third on 23.
Photo: REUTERS
Espanyol are in fourth after their 1-0 win over visiting Malaga on Saturday and Valencia could move above them if they managed a win at Sevilla yesterday.
The Madrid derby was potentially Real’s first genuine test of the season after they had swatted aside mostly mid to lower-table opposition in their previous matches of the campaign.
However, Atletico strikers Diego Forlan and Sergio Aguero saw too little of the ball and wingers Jose Antonio Reyes and Simao only rarely threatened.
After his Pepe had gone close with a header at a packed Bernabeu stadium, Carvalho burst through from the back to fire Real ahead in the 13th minute.
Ozil, a firm favorite with Real fans following his move from Werder Bremen, then bamboozled Atletico goalkeeper David De Gea with a low, swerving free kick from wide on the right to make it 2-0.
Toothless Atletico’s best effort of the first half came in the 36th minute when former Real and Arsenal winger Jose Antonio Reyes forced a fine save from Iker Casillas with a curled shot.
Real striker Gonzalo Higuain and Forlan hit the woodwork with superb volleys in the second half, but Atletico never looked like getting back into the match.
World Player of the Year Messi continued his rich vein of scoring form by taking his tally for the season to eight, three behind Real’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
Getafe crowded their own half, but Barca weaved an intricate web of passes to set up Messi after 23 minutes and the Argentine scored inside the near post.
His subtle layoff created the second for Villa and Pedro grabbed the third after Barca pressured the home defense into a mistake in the 65th minute.
Barca defender Gerard Pique then earned his second yellow card and was sent off for handling the ball in the area and Manu del Moral pulled one back for Getafe from the penalty spot.
With the visitors rattled, Getafe pressed forward, but a red card for Derek Boateng took the wind out of their sails and Barca could have scored again in the final minutes.
Bilbao’s Spain striker Fernando Llorente struck with a back-post header after only six minutes at the Madrigal, but Villarreal turned the game around before the break.
Nilmar leveled with a header and Spain’s Santi Cazorla capitalized on a poor clearance to score.
Bilbao had defender Jon Aurtenetxe sent off for a second bookable offense and Giuseppe Rossi and Jefferson Montero grabbed late breakaway goals.
Elsewhere, Real Zaragoza climbed off the foot of the table with a 3-2 home win over Real Mallorca thanks to a stoppage-time penalty from Gabi.
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