A defensive blunder by SSC Napoli allowed a stoppage-time equalizer in a 1-1 draw with Torino on Sunday, hurting the southern club’s title chances.
SS Lazio also dropped back after being beaten 4-0 by Catania, while ACF Fiorentina were the day’s big winners after beating Cagliari 4-1 to jump ahead of Lazio into fourth place.
After sitting out Napoli’s previous two matches with a minor injury, Edinson Cavani celebrated his return by scoring after six minutes at the Stadio San Paolo from the edge of the box — his seventh goal in nine appearances this season — but shortly after Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri was sent off for protesting, Torino’s Gianluca Sansone equalized with his first Serie A goal after intercepting defender Salvatore Aronica’s unwise back-pass to his goalkeeper.
Photo: AFP
In Sicily, Alejandro Gomez scored twice for Catania and Francesco Lodi added a penalty — all in the opening half hour — then Pablo Barrientos sealed the rout with another goal in the 69th minute.
In Tuscany, Gonzalo Rodriguez gave Fiorentina the lead in the 14th minute and Federico Casarini equalized in the 42nd after the goal-line referee intervened to overturn an offside decision.
Stevan Jovetic restored Fiorentina’s lead in the 50th minute, a rejuvenated Luca Toni found the target in the 54th and Juan Cuadrado added another in the 85th.
Photo: AFP
In Sunday night’s match, sixth-placed AS Roma ended a two-match losing streak with a convincing 4-1 win over US Citta di Palermo.
Captain Francesco Totti put Roma ahead in the 11th minute and Pablo Osvaldo doubled their lead in the 31st. Erik Lamela added another for the hosts in the 69th and recent Italy call-up Mattia Destro scored his first goal for Roma in the 79th, then received his second yellow card for pulling off his shirt and will miss the weekend’s derby with Lazio.
Josip Ilicic pulled one back for Palermo in the 84th minute.
Earlier in the lunchtime fixture, struggling Delfino Pescara 1936 beat in-form Parma 2-0 to save the job of their manager Giovanni Stroppa.
Elvis Abbruscato scored in the 49th minute with an angled shot from inside the area, then Slovakia international midfielder Vladimir Weiss sealed the win with a shot that bounced in off the post in stoppage-time.
Pescara had made clear before the match that Stroppa needed to win to remain in his post. Former Catania coach Pasquale Marino had already been lined up as a replacement.
The victory moved promoted Pescara out of the relegation zone, three points clear of Palermo.
“It wasn’t an easy buildup to the match,” Stroppa said. “I read in some places that it would mark my funeral.”
Also on Sunday, Atalanta BC won 2-1 at UC Sampdoria with goals from Giacomo Bonaventura and Giuseppe de Luca. It was Samp’s sixth consecutive loss, raising calls for the ouster of coach Ciro Ferrara.
Elsewhere, Antonio di Natale scored a 73rd-minute equalizer as Udinese drew 1-1 at Bologna, who had gone ahead with a goal from Alessandro Diamanti in the 46th minute.
Last-placed AC Siena — who started the season with a six-point penalty for match-fixing — beat Genoa 1-0 with a 55th-minute goal from Massimo Paci.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with