Giampaolo Pazzini grabbed a hat-trick on his first start for AC Milan to inspire his new team to a 3-1 triumph over Bologna on Saturday, their first win of the Serie A season.
The forward, who joined Massimiliano Allegri’s side last week in a swap deal with Inter involving Antonio Cassano, led his new club to victory in a match where Bologna may have felt unfortunate not to have gotten a point.
“This is a good sign for me and those who believed in me,” Pazzini said.
Photo: Reuters
Elsewhere, Torino picked up their first victory by beating 10-man Delfino Pescara 1936 by 3-0.
Milan opened the scoring at Bologna after 16 minutes when Pazzini raced through on goal and was controversially adjudged to have been brought down in the area by Nicolo Cherubin.
Replays showed both players tugging at each other’s shirts, but Pazzini dusted himself off and scored his first Milan goal from the penalty spot.
Bologna responded by taking the game to Milan, with the impressive Alessandro Diamanti at the heart of their attacking play.
The home team’s pressure was rewarded four minutes before halftime when Antonio Nocerino brought Diamanti down in the area.Diamanti then smashed the penalty past ‘keeper Christian Abbiati to equalize.
Kevin Prince Boateng drove Milan forward in the second half, but Diamanti also continued to cause the visitors problems.
Pazzini put Milan back in front with 13 minutes left when Federico Agliardi dropped a cross at the striker’s feet. The new striker, who made his debut as a substitute in the 1-0 home defeat by US Sampdoria last Sunday, clinched victory in the 85th minute, when he touched in a wayward Nocerino shot.
Torino swept Pescara aside in the day’s other game after the visitors had Christian Terlizzi was dismissed for bringing down Rolando Bianchi in the box and the striker missed the resulting penalty. Alessandro Sgrigna (34 minutes), Matteo Brighi (59) and Bianchi (63) were on target for Torino.
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