Champions Borussia Dortmund had to come from behind to draw 1-1 at Nuremberg in the Bundesliga on Saturday, while promoted Eintracht Frankfurt routed nine-man TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 4-0 to go top of the fledgling table.
As Bayern Munich prepared to host VfB Stuttgart at the Allianz Arena yesterday, Dortmund drew against a lively Nuremberg.
Dortmund fell behind when the home side’s Czech Republic striker Tomas Pekhart rose highest at the far post and headed past Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller on 31 minutes.
Photo: Reuters
The champions responded nine minutes later with the equalizer when Ivan Perisic’s shot clipped the crossbar and Poland captain Jakub Blaszczykowski — known as Kuba for short — fired home.
Dortmund defender Mats Hummels had a chance cleared off the line in the second half, but the Bundesliga champions are not looking as smooth in attack as they have over the past two years.
Newly promoted Frankfurt backed up last Saturday’s 2-1 win to Bayer Leverkusen with a 4-0 hammering of Hoffenheim, as the hosts finished with nine men.
The excellent Alexander Meier scored Frankfurt’s opening goal at the Rhein-Neckar Arena before Pirmin Schwegler added a second just before the interval. Hoffenheim had midfielder Sejad Salihovic sent off on 70 minutes for two quick bookings, and Philippines defender Stephan Schroeck followed him after he was shown his second yellow card on 73 minutes.
A miserable game ended for the home side when Meier netted his second of the game with a late penalty before Martin Lanig headed in the visitors’ fourth at the death.
Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart, who has rejoined Hamburg SV from Tottenham Hotspur, was an observer in the stands during his new team’s 2-0 defeat at Werder Bremen in the north German derby.
Hamburg goalkeeper Rene Adler saved a first-half penalty from Bremen’s Aaron Hunt after Dutch winger Eljero Elia was fouled in the penalty area by compatriot Jeffrey Bruma four minutes before the break. Hunt made no mistake with his second spot-kick seven minutes into the second half after striker Nils Petersen was brought down by Germany defender Dennis Aogo.
Petersen then doubled Bremen’s lead with a goal on 67 minutes after a Hunt assist.
Having turned down a move to Zenit St Petersburg in midweek, Greek center-back Kyriakos Papadopoulos opened the scoring for Schalke 04 in their 3-1 win at home to Augsburg with a 33rd-minute header. US midfielder Jermaine Jones netted the Royal Blues’ second just a minute after the restart. Dutch striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, last season’s top scorer, headed the third 18 minutes from time while Augsburg pulled back a consolation goal through Torsten Oehrl.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen got back to their winning ways with a 2-0 win at home to SC Freiburg thanks to goals in each half from Gonzalo Castro and defender Philipp Wollscheid.
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