FRANCE
Bastia reach Cup final
Bastia ended Monaco’s 13 matches unbeaten run and set up a League Cup final with title holders Paris Saint-Germain with a 7-6 win on penalties on Wednesday. The teams were locked at 0-0 after extra-time and veteran Sebastien Squillaci, a former Monaco player, ensured his team will travel to the Stade de France for a remake of the 1995 final against PSG by scoring the final penalty in a thrilling shootout. Squilacci sealed the Corsican club’s victory by beating Monaco goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg after Nabil Dirar fired his shot onto the crossbar. PSG advanced to the April 11 final with a 1-0 win over SOSC Lille Metropole on Tuesday. Although Monaco coach Leonardo Jardim started with forwards Dimitar Berbatov, Valere Germain and Anthony Martial, the hosts struggled to create chances.
SPAIN
Real beat Sevilla 2-1
Real Madrid held on to beat Sevilla 2-1 and increase their lead of the Spanish league on Wednesday, despite a spate of injuries and not counting on suspended forward Cristiano Ronaldo. Madrid lost Sergio Ramos and James Rodriguez in an injury-plagued first half at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium that also claimed Sevilla goalkeeper Antonio “Beto” Bastos. Rodriguez gave Madrid the 12th-minute lead before he left with hurt right foot in the 25th. Beto needed to be carried off following a violent collision with Karim Benzema in the 35th, and a minute later substitute Jese Rodriguez made it 2-0. Dangerous early, Sevilla also mustered a late push and substitute Iago Aspas scored to keep the result in doubt for the final 10 minutes. Madrid lead Barcelona by four points.
ITALY
Napoli through to semi-final
Gonzalo Higuain scored deep into injury time to send holders SSC Napoli through to the Italian Cup semi-final with a 1-0 victory over Inter. Just as the match looked set to be heading for extra-time, Higuain pounced in the fourth minute of stoppages, taking advantage of a slip from Inter defender Andrea Ranocchia to latch onto a quick throw-in and curl into the far corner. Inter had gone closest when a Mauro Icardi snapshot hit the left upright in the 13 minute. Napoli next face SS Lazio in a two-legged semifinal as it bids to reach the final at the Stadio Olimpico for the second successive year. Inter face more misery after a dismal start to the year, which has seen it win just one of its five league matches.
GERMANY
Augsburg beat Dortmund
Borussia Dortmund’s relegation worries deepened on Wednesday after their 1-0 loss at home to 10-man Augsburg — their 11th defeat of the season — kept them bottom of the Bundesliga. Raul Bobadilla’s second-half goal lifted Augsburg up to fourth, but left 2011 and 2012 German champions Dortmund in danger of being relegated for the first time since 1972. To add to Borussia’s woes, Kevin Grosskreutz joined their lengthy walking wounded list by limping off with a thigh injury. Dortmund are now two points adrift of both second-from-bottom Hertha BSC and VfB Stuttgart, who drew 0-0 with Cologne. Bayer 04 Leverkusen moved up to fifth thanks to a 1-0 win at Hertha as Stefan Kiessling scored the only goal of the game just after the halftime break at the Olympic Stadium. Hamburg SV moved up to 13th in the table with their first win in five matches with an emphatic 3-0 victory at home to SC Paderborn 07. Hamburg’s north German neighbors Werder Bremen continued their eyecatching climb up the table to 11th with their third straight win as they claimed a 2-1 victory at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.
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