Borussia Dortmund were guaranteed to retain top spot in the Bundesliga for the winter break without kicking a ball when nearest rivals Mainz 05 slumped to a 2-1 defeat at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday.
The result left Mainz seven points adrift of Dortmund with two games to go before the mid-season break. The leaders, on 37 points, could widen the gap against Nuremberg yesterday.
“We never really found a connection in the game,” Mainz coach Thomas Tuchel told reporters. “Our performance was too flat and too cheap.”
Photo: REUTERS
Champions Bayern Munich failed to gain ground and saw their seven-game unbeaten run broken when they slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Schalke 04 to drop to seventh place on 23 points.
The Bavarians were left ruing missed chances as Schalke struck twice after the break through Jose Manuel Jurado and Benedikt Hoewedes to lift last season’s runners up to 16 points.
Schalke and Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was man of the match, spectacularly denying Bastian Schweinsteiger and Toni Kroos in the first half.
Schweinsteiger also hit the bar before the break.
“It is not allowed for us to lose if we play like that,” Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said. “You do need to score if you want to win and if you miss these chances then there is no way you can win.”
Mainz were lackluster against Frankfurt, but the home side had to wait until the 84th minute to secure the winner. Fanis Gekas, the Bundesliga’s top scorer, converted a penalty awarded for handball — his 13th goal in 14 games.
Frankfurt, who move up to eighth on 23 points, had taken a deserved lead in the 35th minute when Mainz defenders fumbled inside the box and the central defender Marco Russ volleyed in from 10m.
Turkey international Halil Altintop fouled Marcel Risse in the box three minutes before half-time, allowing Mainz’s Andre Schuerrle to level from the penalty spot for his seventh goal of the season.
Hanover 96 scored two in as many minutes to come from behind in a 2-1 victory over 10-man Borussia Moenchengladbach that took Hanover up to third in the table on 28 points.
Mike Hanke equalized for Hanover in the 73rd minute and Ivory Coast’s Didier Ya Konan scored the winner moments later to leave Gladbach, who had taken a 19th minute lead through American Michael Bradley, bottom on 10 points.
Gladbach’s Raul Bobadilla was sent off in the 43rd minute.
VfB Stuttgart failed to make their extra man count in a 1-1 draw with Hoffenheim, who had defender Isaac Vorsah sent off with a straight red card just before the break.
Hamburg SV slumped to a 1-0 defeat at Freiburg courtesy of Papiss Demba Cisse’s 11th goal of the season, to drop to ninth on 21 points, while VfL Wolfsburg and Werder Bremen both missed penalties in their 0-0 draw.
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