Bundesliga bottom side SpVgg Greuther Furth breathed some hope into their survival chances with a 1-0 win at Nuremberg in the Franconia derby on Sunday, their first since February’s shock win at Schalke 04.
Defender Johannes Geis hit the first-half winner as Furth enjoyed only their third win of the season — all of which have been away.
With four games left, they must still close the nine-point gap to reach 16th place, which carries a promotion/relegation play-off place, but have their work cut out, facing SC Freiburg, VfB Stuttgart and Hannover 96 in succession.
Stuttgart earlier enjoyed their second home victory over Freiburg inside a week with a 2-1 Bundesliga win, just four days after beating the same opponents by the same margin to reach the German Cup final.
After Stuttgart booked their cup final berth against Bayern Munich at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium on June 1, with Martin Harnik scoring the first-half winner on Wednesday, the Austrian set up both of Sunday’s goals.
The right-winger fired in his cross for Christian Gentner to head home on 33 minutes, then set up striker Vedad Ibisevic to put Stuttgart 2-0 up at the break.
Croatia midfielder Ivan Santini grabbed Freiburg’s consolation two minutes from time.
On Saturday, Bayern Munich warmed-up for tonight’s Champions League semi-final, first-leg at home to Barcelona by claiming three Bundesliga records in a 6-1 rout at Hannover.
Victory gave Bayern a Bundesliga-record 26th victory this season, a record ninth consecutive away win, while they also equaled Borussia Dortmund’s previous best of 81 points in a single season.
Only Hannover midfielder Andre Hoffmann’s later header denied Bayern a record 20th-clean sheet, before striker Claudio Pizarro staked a claim to start against Barcelona with his second goal, having already created two.
Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes opted to rest several stars and played a 4-4-2 formation, a break from Bayern’s usual 4-2-3-1, using two strikers, with Mario Gomez and Pizarro, 34, up front.
It paid off as both scored two goals after Hannover midfielder Lars Stindl scored an early own-goal, then Bayern’s stand-in captain Franck Ribery, taking over from Philipp Lahm, added a second on 22 minutes.
Having been confirmed Bundesliga champions two weeks ago, Bayern remain 20 points clear in the league with four games left.
Dortmund, who host Real Madrid in the other Champions League semi-final, first leg tomorrow, needed just 32 seconds to take the lead as they enjoyed a 2-0 win at home to FSV Mainz 05.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen midfielder Andre Schuerrle, who is widely being tipped to join Chelsea next season, scored twice as his side hammered relegation-threatened TSG 1899 Hoffenheim 5-0.
Striker Stefan Kiessling also netted twice as Leverkusen maintained their grip on third place, which means an automatic Champions League spot next season, as Schalke lost 1-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Hamburg SV captain Rafael van der Vaart scored both goals in their 2-1 win at home to Fortuna Duesseldorf.
In Saturday’s late match, VfL Wolfsburg took a huge step closer to safety with a 3-0 win at fellow strugglers Werder Bremen.
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