Udinese failed to boost their Champions League hopes as they were held to an uneventful 0-0 draw at mid-table Chievo on Saturday.
However, fifth-placed Napoli bounced back from their own terrible run to beat second-from-bottom Novara 2-0 and keep themselves in the race for third.
Francesco Guidolin’s Udinese remain fourth in Serie A, closing the gap on third-placed Lazio in the final Champions League spot to two points, but having played a game more.
It continued the northerners’ late-season meltdown, as they have won only one of their last eight games. And yet they could have snatched the points if emblematic captain Antonio Di Natale had been more precise in his finishing.
Chievo enjoyed much the better of the first period and should really have gone into the break a goal to the good. In a crazy 60-second period, Alberto Paloschi turned Danilo, but then slotted his shot wide.
US international Michael Bradley then burst in behind the defense, but got no purchase on his effort before Udinese goalkeeper Samir Handanovic had to turn Rinaldo Cruzero’s low strike around the post.
In Naples the hosts were home and dry by half-time in a match delayed almost 20 minutes by a freak injury to referee Daniele Doveri. The referee stopped the game after just two minutes after dislocating his shoulder while awarding a free-kick.
Edinson Cavani gave Napoli the lead after a comedy of errors by Novara. Midfielder Filippo Porcari’s high, looping back-pass put goalkeeper Alberto Fontana under pressure and he scuffed his clearance straight to Blerim Dzemaili, who teed up Cavani to slot into the empty net.
Seventh-placed Catania kept up their hunt for European football next season with a 2-0 win over Atalanta, goals from Alejandro Gomez and Felipe Seymour doing the damage.
Parma boosted their survival hopes, while keeping Cagliari looking over their shoulders, with a 3-0 victory over the Sardinians.
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