Rock-bottom Parma’s season went from bad to worse with a 3-1 home defeat to fellow strugglers Sassuolo, while Cagliari moved up four places with a 4-0 rout of promoted Empoli on Saturday.
Parma went in for the half-time break 2-0 down after Sergio Floccari and Francesco Acerbi made the most of shabby defending by the hosts to beat Antonio Mirante from close range.
Algerian Saphir Taider had hit the post with a free kick minutes before the interval and gave Sassuolo a 3-0 lead seven minutes after the restart when he fired a screamer into the top corner after a poor Parma clearance.
Although Antonio Cassano scored a late consolation for the hosts, Roberto Donadoni’s side suffered a seventh defeat in eight games as their local rivals from Emilia grabbed their first win of the season.
It has been a torrid start of the campaign for Donadoni’s side, who were denied a place in this season’s Europa League by the Italian Football Federation because the club had not paid taxes amounting to approximately 300,000 euros (US$380,000).
Earlier, Cagliari’s resurgence continued with a 4-0 rout of Empoli that gave Zdenek Zeman’s men only their second win of the season and moved them up to 13th and two points clear of the relegation zone.
Striker Marco Sau held off his marker to curl the ball past Davide Bassi from the edge of the box on the half-hour for his fourth goal of the season.
Brazilian Danilo Avelar doubled Cagliari’s lead five minutes later when his free kick came off the underside of the bar to leave Bassi with no chance.
Avelar grabbed his second — Cagliari’s third — from the spot two minutes later after Albin Ekdal was felled by Mirko Valdifiori in the area.
Ekdal, who scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win against Inter at the San Siro last month, secured the points for the visitors on the stroke of half-time when he powered through the Empoli defense to squeeze an angled shot past Bassi.
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