SOCCER
Hamburg get lucky point
Hamburg SV were lucky to escape with a 1-1 draw against Cologne as the hosts’ slump continued on Sunday in their sixth Bundesliga game without a win. “We know that we have a lot of hard work ahead of us,” said Hamburg coach Bruno Labbadia, whose players have claimed only two points from that six-game run. Cologne forward Anthony Modeste struck the crossbar with a header in the 38th minute, three minutes before Simon Zoller opened the scoring after a mistake by Hamburg captain Johan Djourou. Nicolai Mueller equalized just after the interval with a brilliant strike into the top-left corner. “The way the game went, we have to be happy with the point,” Mueller said. Elsewhere, promoted SV Darmstadt 98 won 2-0 at relegation-threatened TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in a bad-tempered game. Darmstadt captain Aytac Sulu headed the visitors in front in the 33rd minute and Slobodan Rajkovic converted from close range to seal the win with five minutes to play.
SOCCER
DR Congo seal second title
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) sealed their second African Nations Championships title when they defeated Mali 3-0 in a one-sided final at Kigali’s Amahoro National Stadium on Sunday. Meshack Elia scored a brace and Jonathan Bolingi added a third as the Leopards overwhelmed a young Mali side. Ivory Coast took third spot after beating debutants Guinea 2-1 in a playoff.
GOLF
Willett wins Desert Classic
Britain’s Danny Willett won his fourth European Tour title on Sunday when he took the Dubai Desert Classic by a stroke from compatriot Andy Sullivan and Spain’s Rafa Cabrero-Bello. Overnight leader Willett shot a final round 69 at the Emirates Golf Club to finish on 19-under 269. Spain’s Alvaro Quiros and South Korea’s An Byeong-hun were joint fourth after carding final-round 65s.
TENNIS
Gasquet defends his title
Top seed Richard Gasquet overcame abdominal pains to defend his Open Sud de France title with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Paul-Henri Mathieu in an all-French final on Sunday. Gasquet rallied from 3-0 down in the first set by breaking Mathieu’s serve three times on the way to a 13th career title and his third in Montpellier. Gasquet, ranked 10th in the world, also won the Montpellier title in 2013.
TENNIS
Estrella Burgos triumphs
Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic rallied from a set down to beat Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2 on Sunday to retain his title at the Ecuador Open in Quito. It was only the Dominican’s second ATP Tour singles title. Bellucci was trying to win his fifth ATP Tour title, but ran out of steam after dropping the second set in a tiebreaker.
TENNIS
Bautista Agut beats Troicki
Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut beat Serbia’s Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday to win the inaugural Sofia Open and claim his fourth ATP Tour title. The 27-year-old top seed, who is ranked 18th in the world, wrapped up the victory in 82 minutes to see out the tournament without losing a set. Bautista Agut, who won last month’s Auckland Classic and reached the round-of-16 at the Australian Open, is enjoying his best start to a season with a 12-2 record and two titles.
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