Juventus beat 10-man Udinese 4-0 to move back into second spot in Serie A on Sunday, while Luciano Spalletti’s second spell in charge of AS Roma began with a 1-1 draw against bottom side Hellas Verona.
Paulo Dybala scored twice, including a 25th-minute penalty after Udinese defender Danilo was sent off for bringing down Mario Mandzukic. Dybala also provided two assists for Sami Khedira and Alex Sandro as Juventus dominated the first half.
With their 10th consecutive league win, Juventus moved two points behind SSC Napoli after the Serie A leader’s 3-1 win over US Sassuolo on Saturday.
Photo: AP
“There are still 18 games to go, we need to get a lot more wins to get to the right amount for the title,” Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said. “Napoli are on an extraordinary run, they are the favorites at the moment, but the top five in the table all have the chance to win it.”
ACF Fiorentina remained fourth, slipping six points behind Napoli after a surprise 2-0 loss at AC Milan, who moved up to sixth. Roma are fifth, nine points below top spot.
“We didn’t do very well, even if we tried to and created chances which we then didn’t make the most of,” Spalletti said.
Photo: EPA
Elsewhere, SS Lazio fought back from two goals down to draw 2-2 at Bologna after home defender Adam Masina was sent off, while relegation-threatened Carpi beat UC Sampdoria 2-1 for a second successive win. AC Chievo Verona drew 1-1 against Empoli and Genoa beat 10-man US Citta di Palermo 4-0 in the lunchtime kickoff.
Udinese had beaten Juventus on the opening day and were looking for a similar result to celebrate the inauguration of the Nuovo Stadio Friuli, where all 25,000 seats were sold out, but Juventus took the lead in the 15th minute when Dybala curled a free-kick over the wall and matters grew worse three minutes later.
Udinese failed to clear a corner and Dybala nodded the ball across the six-yard box for an unmarked Khedira to head home.
Photo: AP
Any hope Udinese had of rescuing something from the match evaporated in the 25th minute. Stephan Lichtsteiner sent Mandzukic clear and he was brought down by Danilo, who was duly sent off. Dybala converted the penalty for his 11th goal of the season.
Alex Sandro netted his first in Serie A three minutes from halftime, firing into the far corner from the edge of the penalty area to complete the embarrassing rout.
Spalletti, who first coached Roma from 2005 to 2009, returned to the club this week after Rudi Garcia was sacked following just one win in their past 10 matches in all competitions, but their struggles continued against Verona, who have not won a match all season.
Radja Nainggolan broke the deadlock four minutes from halftime with his first league goal of the season after a brilliant back-heeled assist from Daniele de Rossi. The goal came moments after Edin Dzeko had hit the post, prompting hope of a better second half for the hosts.
Both sides hit the woodwork after the break, before Verona leveled just after the hour when Leandro Castan brought down Pawel Wszolek and Giampaolo Pazzini fired the resulting penalty in off the underside of the bar.
Dzeko should have won it for Roma in stoppage-time, but he headed over the bar from close range.
Milan got off to the perfect start in the evening match when Giacomo Bonaventura released Carlos Bacca, who raced forward, cut inside the penalty area and fired into the far corner to give his side a fourth-minute lead.
Mario Balotelli made his comeback from injury three minutes from time, with his first appearance since Sept. 27 last year, but it was another substitute who found the back of the net.
Kevin-Prince Boateng ran onto Juraj Kucka’s long ball, rounded Fiorentina goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu and slotted into an empty net for his first goal of his second spell at Milan.
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