Xabi Alonso made his Bayern Munich debut, while Robert Lewandowski scored his first goal for the club as the defending champions drew 1-1 at Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga on Saturday.
Alonso was handed his first start at Bayern a day after completing his transfer from Real Madrid and he watched ex-Borussia Dortmund striker Lewandowski open the scoring after 10 minutes in Gelsenkirchen.
Shortly before being substituted, the Spanish midfielder was involved when Schalke equalized on 62 minutes. Alonso attempted to execute a sliding goal-line clearance, only to see the ball bounce into the net off Benedikt Hoewedes’ arm.
Despite Bayern’s protests, the goal stood and the home team comfortably held on to end a run of seven defeats in a row against the Bavarians.
The result meant that Bayer 04 Leverkusen sit top of the Bundesliga after Roger Schmidt’s side came from behind twice to beat Hertha BSC 4-2 earlier on Saturday.
Meanwhile, SC Paderborn 07 earned their first ever win in the Bundesliga with an excellent 3-0 victory at Hamburg SV.
Cologne also got their first victory since returning to the top flight by beating VfB Stuttgart 2-0 thanks to first-half goals from forwards Yuya Osako and Anthony Ujah.
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim were unable to keep pace with Leverkusen after they were pegged back in a 1-1 draw at Werder Bremen, while VfL Wolfsburg are still without a win after being held to a 2-2 draw by visitors Eintracht Frankfurt.
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