SOCCER
Napoli win in shootout
Holders SSC Napoli beat 10-man Udinese 5-4 on penalties to reach the Coppa Italia quarter-finals on Thursday, after the match ended 2-2. Substitute Gonzalo Higuain thumped in the winning spot-kick after Allan’s effort was saved by Napoli goalkeeper Mariano Andujar. Dries Mertens missed the chance to get Napoli off to the perfect start when he sent a penalty onto the crossbar. The deadlock was finally broken in the 58th minute by Cyril Thereau following a swift Udinese counterattack. Jorghino made no mistake with Napoli’s second penalty and the match appeared to swing his side’s way minutes later when Silvan Widmer was sent off for two bookings. Marek Hamsik fired Napoli ahead in the third minute of extra-time, but Panagiotis Kone leveled shortly after with an acrobatic volley. Napoli next face Inter.
SOCCER
Stade Rennais advance
Stade Rennais booked their place in the round-of-16 of the Coupe de France with a 5-4 win on penalties over fellow top-flight side Stade de Reims on Thursday. The teams were locked at 1-1 after extra-time. In a quite soporific game, Rennes went ahead in the 29th minute after Christopher Glombard fouled Pedro Henrique in the penalty area. Veteran defender Sylvain Armand made no mistake from the spot, sending goalkeeper Kossi Agassa the wrong way, but the hosts could not hold onto the lead as substitute Grejohn Kyei leveled in the 70th minute after being set up by Nicolas de Previlles. Rennes goalkeeper Benoit Costil then made three saves during the shootout, before Anders Konradsen scored his penalty to set up a round-of-16 match against AS Monaco.
SOCCER
Swansea sign Naughton
Swansea City have signed Tottenham Hotspur’s former England under-21 fullback Kyle Naughton on a three-and-a-half-year deal, the Premier League clubs said on Thursday. Naughton, who is eligible for today’s FA Cup fourth-round tie at Blackburn Rovers, has already trained with his new team. Spurs bought the versatile defender from Sheffield United in a double deal that also saw Kyle Walker move to London in 2009. The 26-year-old Naughton, a rightback who can also fill in on the left, played 74 games for Spurs and also had loan spells at Middlesbrough, Leicester City and Norwich City.
GOLF
Putnam grabs one-shot lead
Michael Putnam fired 10 birdies in a nine-under 63 on Thursday to grab the lead after the first round of the PGA Tour’s Humana Challenge in La Quinta, California. His one-stroke advantage came thanks to a blistering birdie run that included six straight from the 12th, with Italy’s Francesco Molinari, as well as fellow Americans Mark Wilson, Blake Adams, John Peterson and Scott Pinckney sharing second on 64. It was a further stroke back to defending champion Patrick Reed, Matt Kuchar, Jason Kokrak and Steve Wheatcroft.
GOLF
Wiesberger in three-way tie
A sparkling run of four birdies in a row lifted Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger into a three-way tie for the lead with South Africans Branden Grace and George Coetzee after the Qatar Masters second round on Thursday. Wiesberger, who has two European Tour titles to his credit, but none since 2012, surged through the field with birdies at the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th to return a six-under 66 for a nine-under tally of 135 in Doha. Grace shot a 68, while Coetzee carded a 67.
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