Guizhou Renhe conjured a late equalizer on Wednesday to hold Ulsan Hyundai 1-1 and end the South Korean club’s record 11-game winning streak in the AFC Champions League.
Yang Hao nodded the Chinese visitors’ leveler four minutes from time to halt Ulsan’s extraordinary run of victories stretching back to their 2012 Asian title run.
Ulsan, who missed last year’s competition, entered the match at the Ulsan Munsu Football Stadium as the only team in the tournament with a 100 percent record.
Photo: AFP
They looked set to make it a 12th straight win when Brazilian forward Rafinha converted a 57th-minute penalty after being fouled by Guizhou skipper Sun Jihai.
Guizhou are bottom of Group H after losing their first two matches, but claimed their first point when Yang glanced home Sun’s cross from the right late in the game.
Despite missing out on the win, Ulsan are still unbeaten in 15 straight matches in the competition and stayed top with seven points.
Photo: AFP
However, the Western Sydney Wanderers are closing in on them, having moved to within a point of the group leaders when Labinot Haliti’s early strike earned the Australian side a 1-0 upset win over Japan’s Kawasaki Frontale on Wednesday and their second consecutive victory.
The Pristina, Kosovo-born striker scored after only three minutes, turning in Tomi Juric’s pass from close range to give the debutants their first-ever home victory in the competition.
In Group F, Beijing Guoan went first with a 2-1 home win over Australia’s Central Coast Mariners.
Photo: Reuters
Veteran striker Shao Jiayi put the Chinese club ahead just seconds before halftime with an unstoppable low drive, before Nigerian striker Peter Utaka rounded goalkeeper Liam Reddy to make it 2-0 in the 63rd minute.
Eddy Bosnar and Glen Tifiro hit the woodwork for Central Coast before Utaka’s goal, but the Australian club pulled one back through a Nick Fitzgerald penalty with five minutes left.
However, Beijing hung on to claim their first win in the competition this season, putting them top of their group on five points, one ahead of Japan’s Sanfrecce Hiroshima and FC Seoul.
Sanfrecce put themselves level on points with the South Korean side — last year’s runners-up — with a 2-1 home win that ended their frustrating, eight-game winless streak in the competition.
Tsukasa Shiotani netted the decisive goal for the J-League champions in the 78th minute, after Rafael Costa canceled out Yojiro Takahagi’s opener for the hosts.
In West Asia, 2011 champions Al Sadd of Qatar stayed on top of Group D with a 2-2 draw against Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal, while United Arab Emirates side Al Ahli clinched their first win when they beat Iran’s Foolad Sepahan 2-1.
In Group B, Uzbekistan’s Bunyodkor played out a 1-1 draw with Iran’s Foolad Kouzestan, while Al Fateh of Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s El Jaish drew 0-0.
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