Romelu Lukaku on Sunday scored after 33 seconds and set up another in Inter’s 3-0 win over Genoa to keep their title push on track ahead of city rivals AC Milan, who beat AS Roma 2-1.
Inter remain four points ahead of second-placed Milan, who got back to winning ways in Rome after consecutive league losses, including the previous weekend’s derby defeat.
Champions Juventus are a further six points adrift after being held 1-1 at Hellas Verona on Saturday, but have played a game fewer.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Atalanta BC, equal on points with Juventus, take fourth spot two points ahead of Roma, who drop to fifth following the loss to Milan.
Lukaku scored with the first chance at the San Siro, then laid on Matteo Darmian for Inter’s second in the 69th minute. Alexis Sanchez came off the bench to add a third with 13 minutes to go.
“We’re first in the standings and it’s a good feeling,” Lukaku said as Inter try to deny Juventus a 10th consecutive league title after finishing runners-up last season.
Antonio Conte’s side followed on from the 3-0 derby win over Milan, notching a fifth win in a row as they push for a first league title since 2009-2010.
“We’re happy because our hard work is paying off,” Conte said. “We know that there are 14 games left. Let’s keep our antennas up until the end if we want to do something good.”
Lukaku led the way, completing a give-and-go with Lautaro Martinez after good work from Nicolo Barella to fire in from an angle for his 18th Serie A goal of the season, one shy of leading scorer Cristiano Ronaldo.
The 27-year-old has scored six goals in the past five games.
“I’m in a good moment of my career, but the important thing is that Inter win,” the former Manchester United striker said. “These matches are opportunities for us to give signals to others, but the championship is long.”
Milan won an intense battle with rivals Roma at the Stadio Olimpico in the Italian capital, as Stefano Pioli’s side push for a first league title since 2010-2011.
A Franck Kessie penalty gave Milan the lead five minutes before halftime after Federico Fazio fouled Davide Calabria.
Jordan Veretout pulled Roma level five minutes after the break with an arrowed shot, but the away side were soon back in front.
Ante Rebic drilled home the winner eight minutes later after collecting a pass from Alexis Saelemaekers following a poor clearance from Roma goalkeeper Pau Lopez.
Off-form Milan star Zlatan Ibrahimovic had been substituted shortly before Croatia international Rebic scored the decisive goal.
“I told the lads that two games [losses] cannot take away the confidence built up over a year,” Pioli said. “It’s an important win at a decisive moment in the season which takes us out of two very strange weeks.”
Ibrahimovic watched the end of game with an ice pack on his left thigh before a week in which he is to juggle soccer and show business as one of the star presenters of the San Remo music festival.
Atalanta kept their UEFA Champions League push alive with a 2-0 win over UC Sampdoria with goals in either half from Ruslan Malinovskyi and Robin Gosens.
SSC Napoli’s record goalscorer Dries Mertens returned from injury to help the southerners boost their own top-four hopes with a 2-0 win over local rivals Benevento that puts them a point behind Roma in sixth.
Mertens started for the first time in more than two months and the 33-year-old got his boot to a Faouzi Ghoulam cross after half an hour for his 131st Napoli goal.
Matteo Politano turned in the second in the 66th minute and Gennaro Gattuso’s side held on for the points, despite Kalidou Koulibaly’s sending off 10 minutes from fulltime.
Udinese defeated ACF Fiorentina 1-0, while in a relegation battle, Cagliari snapped their 16-match winless run in coach Leonardo Semplici’s first match in charge with a 2-0 success over rock-bottom Crotone.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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