Montpellier became the latest side to occupy the summit of Ligue 1 in a wide open season with a 1-0 win at Nice on Saturday.
Striker Olivier Giroud’s goal seven minutes from time earned Montpellier the win that lifted them to 24 points.
Earlier, Paris Saint-Germain had consolidated their standing as legitimate title contenders with a comfortable 2-1 win over Stade Malherbe Caen at the Parc des Princes, a result that lifted Antoine Kombouare’s side into second place on 23 points.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Guillaume Hoarau put PSG into a 40th-minute lead, with his Franco-Turkish teammate Mevlut Erding following up five minutes after the restart.
Caen reduced the deficit via Moroccan Youssef El Arabi 10 minutes from time, but the hosts held on to move up from fourth to second on 23 points.
Stade Rennais kept the wheels on their title challenge with a 2-1 win over surprise high-flyers Stade Brestois 29, who went into the weekend’s action leading the pack.
Whilst far from dazzling, PSG put up a solid performance in a match that the PSG of not so long ago could easily have lost.
Among the players to shine was defender Mamadou Sakhol, emboldened from his first run out with the France national team in Wednesday’s encouraging 2-1 win over England at Wembley.
It was just the result PSG needed ahead of next week’s assignment at Olympique Lyonnais.
After struggling to break down Caen’s tight defense, Hoarau’s header with five minutes of the first half remaining broke the deadlock for his fifth goal of the season.
Defender Sylvain Armand’s long clearance then found a waiting Erding, who easily beat Caen goalkeeper Alexi Thebaux to net his fourth goal of the campaign.
Caen were looking dangerous on the counterattack and they got some reward for their spirited performance and a string of missed opportunities when El Arabi produced a fine shot from the left into an empty goal — his 10th of the season to lead the scoring charts.
Rennes took the honors against Brest in the first derby between the Brittany neighbors since 1990.
Rennes boast the tightest defense in the league, conceding only their ninth goal of the season in the second minute of stoppage-time, but by then, thanks to Jires Kembo-Ekoko’s 39th-minute opener and Jerome Leroy’s contribution in the 80th minute, Rennes had already all but sewn up the points.
Brest are fifth, albeit only a point further back.
Early trailblazers Saint-Etienne had to settle for a share of the points after their 1-1 draw with Auxerre to leave the two sides on 19 points apiece.
Olympique de Marseille, meanwhile, had trouble seeing off ten-acious Toulouse, with Nigerian defender Taye Taiwo missing a penalty and only Andre Ayew’s goal two minutes from time earning the visitors’ the points.
Elsewhere, Nancy defeated Valenciennes 2-0 to move out of the relegation zone, while Sochaux saw off Lorient by an identical scoreline at Stade Auguste Bonal.
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei (謝淑薇) and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko finished runners-up in the Wimbledon women's doubles final yesterday, losing 6-3, 2-6, 4-6. The three-set match against Veronika Kudermetova of Russia and Elise Mertens of Belgium lasted two hours and 23 minutes. The loss denied 39-year-old Hsieh a chance to claim her 10th Grand Slam title. Although the Taiwanese-Latvian duo trailed 1-3 in the opening set, they rallied with two service breaks to take it 6-3. In the second set, Mertens and Kudermetova raced to a 5-1 lead and wrapped it up 6-2 to even the match. In the final set, Hsieh and
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Outside Anfield, the red sea of tributes to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, has continued to grow this week, along with questions over whether Liverpool could play at Preston today, their first game since the brothers’ tragic loss. Inside Anfield, and specifically a grieving Liverpool dressing room, there was no major debate over the pre-season friendly. The English Premier League champions intend to honor their teammate in the best way they know how. It would be only 10 days since the deaths of Jota and Silva when Liverpool appear at Deepdale Stadium for what is certain to be a hugely
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