Impoverished East Timor left with a smile on their faces after holding Malaysia to a 1-1 draw in Kuala Lumpur in FIFA 2018 World Cup qualifying on Thursday, while the Philippines shocked Bahrain 2-1, but there was no fairy-tale result for fellow minnows Cambodia and Bhutan, as they suffered heavy defeats.
East Timor grabbed an unexpected early point in Group A when Brazilian-born Ramon Saro scored a stoppage-time equalizer against Malaysia.
In Manila, the unfancied Philippines also made a rousing start as they downed Bahrain 2-1 in their Group H opener at Philippines Sports Stadium.
Photo: AP
Misagh Bahadoran stabbed in a cross by Phil Younghusband in the 50th minute and Javier Patino added a second after a goalmouth scramble, before Abdulwahab al-Malood grabbed a consolation goal for Bahrain in stoppage-time.
Cambodia were also seeking a positive start in front of their home fans at a packed Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh, but found themselves instead on the wrong end of a 4-0 thumping by Singapore in Group E.
Khairul Amri opened the scoring after nine minutes and Safuwan Baharudin struck twice to put the visitors 3-0 up at halftime, before Fazrul Nawaz added a fourth 10 minutes into the second half.
Bhutan also suffered a heavy defeat as they were hammered 7-0 by Hong Kong, with Jaimes McKee scoring twice for the hosts in Group C.
Kyaw Zayar Win’s late equalizer earned Myanmar a 2-2 draw in their Group G opener in Laos, while Anton Zemlianukhin scored twice as Kyrgyzstan won 3-1 in Bangladesh in Group B.
Former Asian champions Kuwait got their qualifying campaign off to a great start when they defeated Lebanon 1-0 away thanks to an 86th-minute goal from Yousef Nasser, but they were left ruing missed chances which could have changed the Group G result in their favor.
In Group D, Oman scored in the first minute before holding off a gritty India for a 2-1 victory.
Qasim Said’s opener was canceled out by Sunil Chetri’s stunning left-footed shot in the 26th minute, but Oman regained the lead after Amad al-Hosni converted a penalty in the 40th minute.
India put in a spirited performance and they had a goal disallowed in the 67th minute when striker Robin Singh was ruled offside.
In the late matches, Syria went on a goal spree to thrash Afghanistan 6-0, with Raja Rafe scoring twice in their Group E clash.
In Group H, North Korea defeated Yemen by a solitary goal scored by So Hyon-uk in the 71st minute.
Hassan Mahmoud scored a hat-trick to help Jordan defeat Tajikistan 3-1, with Manuchehr Dzhalilov scoring the consolation goal for the hosts.
Qatar scraped past the Maldives 1-0 in their Group C clash, thanks to a late goal by Ahmed al-Sayed, while Saudi Arabia edged past Palestine 3-2 in Group A thanks to Mohammed al-Sahlawi’s winner deep into stoppage-time.
A total of 14 matches were played on Thursday in matches that serve as qualifiers for both the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2019 AFC Asian Cup.
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