WORLD CUP
Egypt to play Ghana in Cairo
Egypt will play in Cairo for the first time in two years for a spot in next year’s World Cup. The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) decided on Wednesday to hold the second leg of the World Cup playoff against Ghana in November at a military stadium in the violence-hit capital. The EFA also said that fans would be allowed in to watch the Nov. 15 game at the 30 June Stadium. The decision to play in Cairo was taken after discussions between the national soccer body, Minister of Sports Taher Abouzeid — a former Egypt international — and state authorities. Egypt have not qualified for the World Cup since 1990, but under former US manager Bob Bradley, they progressed to the final two-leg playoffs for a place in Brazil with a perfect six wins in their group, the only team out of 40 to do so. Egypt’s last game in Cairo was a 3-0 win over Niger in October 2011, four months before a deadly riot at a league game in Port Said left more than 70 fans dead in the midst of the country’s political turmoil. Since then, Egypt have played in Alexandria and more recently in the Red Sea resort of El Gouna. The first leg of the playoff is scheduled for Oct. 15 in Ghana.
FRANCE
Monaco extend stellar start
Ligue 1 leaders AS Monaco extended their best start to a league campaign with a 3-0 victory at home to SC Bastia on Wednesday, while Paris Saint-Germain kept pace with a 1-0 win at Valenciennes. A fifth win in seven games for the principality outfit moved them onto 17 points, two ahead of defending champions PSG, with Olympique de Marseille one point further back. Defeat for Valenciennes extended the northerners’ losing streak to six, leaving them second from bottom on just three points. Elsewhere, goals from Salim Arrache and Aboubacar Demba Camara gave Fabrizio Ravanelli’s AC Ajaccio their first victory of the season as they recorded a 2-1 win at home to Olympique Lyonnais. Martin Braithwaite’s 72nd-minute winner handed Toulouse a 1-0 win over Lorient, while promoted En Avant de Guingamp routed basement club Sochaux-Montbeliard 5-1, Nantes beat OGC Nice 2-0 and Girondins de Bordeaux drew 0-0 with Stade de Reims.
GERMANY
Bayern destroy Hannover
Holders Bayern Munich crushed Hannover 96 4-1 with two goals from Thomas Mueller to reach the German Cup round-of-16 on Wednesday. Schalke 04 were far less convincing, but managed to recover from their 4-0 demolition by Bayern last week to beat third-tier Darmstadt 98 3-1. Second-tier Kaiserslautern came from a goal down to dump out Bundesliga Hertha BSC 3-1. Last season’s runners-up, VfB Stuttgart, also bowed out with a 2-1 defeat at SC Freiburg. Saarbrucken beat Paderborn 2-1, while Eintracht Frankfurt defeated Bochum 2-0. FSV Frankfurt went down away to Ingolstadt 0-2 and Osnabruck lost away to Union Berlin 0-1.
ITALY
Roma keep Serie A lead
Arsenal reject Gervinho scored his maiden goal for AS Roma as they beat UC Sampdoria 2-0 and moved two points clear of stumbling SSC Napoli to stay top of Serie A on Wednesday. Roma now have 15 points after five wins in as many games, while Napoli sit two points adrift after a 1-1 draw with US Sassuolo. Champions Juventus moved up to third with a fortuitous 2-1 win away to feisty AC Chievo Verona, while SS Lazio outclassed second-from-bottom Catania 2-1 at the Estadio Olimpico to sit sixth. Injury-hit AC Milan, without Mario Balotelli, faced the banana skin of a trip away to Bologna and secured a lucky 3-3 draw.
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