Stade Rennais missed the chance to go top of Ligue 1 on Sunday, blowing a lead to draw 1-1 at home with AS Saint-Etienne.
Rennes winger Jonathan Pitroipa played a one-two with Julien Feret to fire a low shot that goalkeeper Stephane Ruffier parried, but Morocco forward Youssouf Hadji followed up to bury the ball into the net in the 41st minute.
Rennes nearly added a second goal in the 53rd minute when Pitroipa beat the offside trap to be clean through on goal, but the Burkina Faso forward sent his lob over the bar.
Photo: Reuters
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leveled for Saint-Etienne in the 56th minute. The Gabon forward outjumped Jean-Armel Kana-Biyik to head a cross from Fabien Lemoine into the top corner.
Saint-Etienne came close to scoring a winner in the 67th minute. Substitute Max Gradel beat defender Chris Mavinga to the ball, but he dragged his shot wide from 15m out.
“It was a tough match,” Pitroipa told Canal Plus television. “Our level dropped in the second half unfortunately and they equalized. It’s a pity to take only a point tonight.”
Rennes slipped to fifth place, two points behind leaders Paris Saint-Germain, Olympique Lyonnais and Toulouse.
“When you score first, you must be able to protect your lead,” Rennes coach Frederic Antonetti said. “That’s something we are not capable of doing. We must work on that.”
Also on Sunday, Dennis Oliech scored a second-half hat-trick to lead AJ Auxerre to a 4-1 win over Sochaux-Montbeliard and AC Ajaccio were held 1-1 at Stade Brestois 29.
Sochaux forward Modibo Maiga collected a pass from Yassin Mikari to beat goalkeeper Olivier Sorin after only two minutes, but Alain Traore converted a low cross from Oliech to get his sixth goal this season and level for Auxerre in the 51st minute.
Oliech then took advantage of a mistake by goalkeeper Teddy Richert to slot into an empty net in the 52nd minute. The Kenya forward converted a rebound in the 63rd minute to make it 3-1, before completing the rout with another goal in the 67th minute.
“It’s a heavy defeat,” Sochaux coach Mecha Bazdarevic told the club’s Web site.
We must get back to work quickly and change our mindset. It has more to do with our heads than with our legs,” he said.
Sochaux also lost 6-2 to Rennes on Wednesday and they have conceded 10 goals in their last two games.
In Brest, striker Nolan Roux put the hosts ahead with a close-range header in the 61st minute, but Ajaccio substitute Richard Socrier equalized with a chip in the 66th minute.
Brest and Ajaccio both remained in the relegation zone.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite