Chelsea stretched their unbeaten start to the season to a club record-equaling 16 games with a 1-1 UEFA Champions League draw against NK Maribor on Wednesday, but the 2011-2012 winners were given a mighty scare.
The Slovenian upstarts, destroyed 6-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in London two weeks ago, took the lead in the 50th minute when Macedonia winger Agim Ibraimi curled in a spectacular left-foot shot from the edge of the penalty area.
Maribor, buoyed by a noisy crowd, swarmed all over Jose Mourinho’s side and had a great chance to make it 2-0 on the hour when unmarked teenager Luka Zahovic blazed the ball over the bar from close range with an open goal at his mercy.
Chelsea then upped the tempo and Nemanja Matic equalized with a tap-in at the far post after captain John Terry had headed on a right-wing corner from Cesc Fabregas in the 73rd minute.
The Londoners spurned an excellent opportunity to grab all three points when Eden Hazard was tripped in the area with four minutes to go. The Belgian picked himself up to take the penalty, but his effort was saved by Jasmin Handanovic.
A grim-faced Mourinho, who brought on Diego Costa and Oscar for Andre Schuerrle and Willian at halftime, and also replaced Filipe Luis with Ramires 11 minutes into the second half, was clearly unhappy with his side.
Chelsea started the game on the front foot with the unmarked Kurt Zouma heading over from close range and Didier Drogba, making his 100th career appearance in a UEFA competition, forcing Handanovic into a sprawling stop.
The longer the half went on, though, the more pedestrian the passing became from the visitors.
Ibraimi’s stunning left-foot drive sent the crowd wild and Maribor, back in the Champions League group stages after a 15-year absence, sensed victory, but Hazard, Oscar and Fabregas suddenly took hold of proceedings.
The Londoners continued to drive forward after Matic’s equalizer and Handanovic performed heroics when he went full length to deny Hazard after the Belgian burst clean through.
Hazard then saw his spot-kick saved by Handanovic.
At the final whistle Chelsea had equaled their best-ever start to a campaign set in 2005-2006.
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
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed