Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale scored to give Real Madrid a 2-1 win at Malaga on Saturday, as the La Liga leaders set a club record with a 16th consecutive victory in all competitions.
Although Cristiano Ronaldo failed to score for the first time in 12 league matches this season, he set up both Benzema’s 18th-minute opener and Bale’s goal in the 83rd.
Roque Santa Cruz headed in Malaga’s goal in stoppage-time after Real’s Isco was sent off with his second booking in the 86th.
Photo: Reuters
Los Blancos were denied a wider winning margin by Malaga goalkeeper Carlos Kameni, who saved close-range shots by Ronaldo, Bale and Isco.
Counterpart Iker Casillas had a shaky showing throughout, spilling three shots that came close to costing the UEFA Champions League holders dearly.
With the win, Real opened up a five-point lead over Barcelona before the Catalan club visited Valencia yesterday.
Benzema put the visitors in front by redirecting Ronaldo’s cross after the Ballon d’Or holder used a step-over dribble to open up a passing angle from the wing.
Casillas let Sergi Darder’s shot fall between his legs and hit the post in the 23rd before Duda sent his free-kick off the bar in the 43rd in the hosts’ best opportunities until their final push.
Kameni reserved the best of several saves for the 76th minute, when a defensive gaff let the ball roll to the unmarked Ronaldo, but the former RCD Espanyol goalie anticipated his point-blank try.
“With a little bit of luck we could have gotten more from this game,” Kameni said.
However, he could do nothing to stop Bale’s dipping strike after Ronaldo deftly headed the ball on to meet the Welshman’s run, as Malaga’s first home loss of the season left them in sixth place.
Elsewhere, Athletic Bilbao midfielder Benat Etxebarria set up one goal before scoring to secure a 2-1 win at Getafe, while Espanyol fought back for a 2-1 win over visitors Levante UD under heavy rain for their first win in six games.
Etxebarria found Mikel San Jose to glance in his corner-kick in the 36th. He then curled a free-kick inside the post for Bilbao’s second goal in the 90th, before Angel Lafita added suspense to stoppage-time with a goal seconds later.
Ninth-placed Bilbao continued their turnaround following a poor start to the season by extending their unbeaten run to six rounds.
In Barcelona, Levante’s Jose Morales tapped in a rebound for the 12th-minute opener, but Felipe Caicedo equalized off the post for the hosts in the 19th before Sergio Garcia hit from long distance.
Espanyol rose to 10th place, just ahead of Getafe. Both provisionally rested four points above the relegation zone. Levante were left two points above the drop zone ahead of yesterday’s games.
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