Former Chelsea striker Salomon Kalou helped LOSC Lille Metropole shrug off their midweek Champions League humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 home win over Stade Brestois 29 on Saturday. The Ivory Coast forward volleyed home a Dimitri Payet cross on the stroke of halftime to extend Lille’s unbeaten Ligue 1 run to five games.
Last year’s league winners are now sixth in the table with 20 points from 12 matches, two behind leaders Paris Saint-Germain, who were to visit champions Montpellier Herault yesterday.
AS Saint-Etienne beat Troyes 2-0 to move up to third, level on 21 points with Valenciennes, who recovered from 2-1 down to triumph 3-2 at SC Bastia.
Seventh-placed Toulouse were surprisingly beaten 4-2 at home by mid-table AC Ajaccio, missing their second opportunity in a week to go level with PSG and second-placed Olympique de Marseille on 22 points.
Lille, who were hammered 6-1 by Bayern Munich on Wednesday, dominated against Brest and took a deserved lead through Kalou in the 45th minute.
Lille almost grabbed a 12th-minute lead, when Brest defender Bernard Mendy, under pressure from Kalou, went close to turning the ball into his own net.
Kalou was involved again seven minutes later, setting up Nolan Roux who failed to tap the ball in from point-blank.
Lille struggled to maintain their grip in the second half, but shot-shy Brest never posed much of a danger to keeper Mickael Landreau.
Saint-Etienne wasted a host of chances against Troyes before Renaud Cohade put them ahead on 46 minutes when he controlled the ball perfectly in the box to score.
Les Verts pushed hard for a second and it arrived with two minutes to go when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang collected his eighth league goal of the season.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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