Reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain stretched their lead in Ligue 1 to 13 points on Saturday after claiming a 2-1 victory away to Lorient amid tight security after the attacks in Paris.
Playing for the first time since the attacks, the capital club extended their winning run to eight matches through first-half goals from Hervin Ongenda and Blaise Matuidi at the Stade Yves Allainmat.
Benjamin Moukandjo netted his league-best 10th goal to set up a nervy finish, but Lorient ultimately suffered their first defeat in six outings.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s very positive in the sense that we continue our very satisfying run,” PSG coach Laurent Blanc said. “Even if the context in which we prepared for this match was difficult, I think we can be pleased tonight.”
“I’m not going to hide from you that I really want to get back to Paris and be with my family, though,” he added.
Tightened security checks were in place in Brittany, much like the rest of the nation, just eight days after terrorist attacks in Paris and by the Stade de France left 130 people dead and more than 350 injured.
France’s national anthem, La Marseillaise, rang out around the ground before a minute’s silence was observed in memory of the victims.
Eleven doves of peace were released into the sky ahead of kickoff, while PSG players wore shirts adorned with the words “Je suis Paris” (I am Paris) below the club crest.
Blanc had admitted it would not be easy for his team to focus on the game following the atrocities, but said none of his players had asked him to be left out of Saturday’s squad.
However, the league leaders were without Javier Pastore, Marco Verratti, Angel di Maria and Ezequiel Lavezzi due to injury, while David Luiz was rested to protect his knee from Lorient’s artificial surface.
PSG had won on each of their previous four visits to Lorient and duly grabbed a 26th-minute lead through academy product Ongenda, who poked home Gregory van der Wiel’s cross for his first goal in the top flight.
Ongenda had a hand in the visitors’ second goal six minutes later, releasing Zlatan Ibrahimovic, with the Swede then squaring for Matuidi to guide past Lorient goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte from close range.
Sylvain Ripoll’s hosts had lost just once since August and nearly found a way back into the contest when Raphael Guerreiro sent an effort just wide of Kevin Trapp’s right-hand post early in the second half.
Lorient did eventually pull one back on 82 minutes when Cameroonian striker Moukandjo, who has five goals in his past three matches, headed in substitute Romain Philippoteaux’s cross, but it served as nothing more than a consolation.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Mario Pasalic’s 43rd-minute goal earned AS Monaco a 1-0 victory over Nantes, while En Avant de Guingamp defeated second-from-bottom Toulouse 2-0.
Montpellier Herault made it five games unbeaten with a 3-1 defeat of a Stade de Reims side in free fall as they lost their sixth straight match.
ESTAC Troyes remain winless following a 1-1 draw with Lille OSC, who were playing their first game following the sacking of coach Herve Renard.
The match between SC Bastia and Gazelec Ajaccio was postponed due to heavy winds.
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
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with