SOCCER
Flares end Dutch match
The match between bitter rivals AFC Ajax and Feyenoord was on Sunday abandoned after fans lobbed flares on the pitch in Amsterdam, with violence later erupting outside the stadium in the latest unrest to blight Dutch soccer. Feyenoord had taken a 3-0 first-half lead at the Johan Cruyff Arena, sparking ugly scenes from the hardcore supporters of Ajax, who are experiencing one of the worst crises in their storied 123-year history. The unrest spilled out of the stadium, as furious Ajax fans smashed into the main entrance, prompting riot police on horseback to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd. “If you go to a football game ... you can’t go here with your family because there’s always violence,” spectator Bryan Buffing said. “We have a real, real big issue in the Netherlands.”
TENNIS
Laver win thrills McEnroe
Team World on Sunday won a second straight Laver Cup title as Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe sealed a 13-2 victory over Team Europe with a 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/5) doubles win over Hubert Hurkacz and Andrey Rublev. Team World captain John McEnroe, who had endured four straight defeats in the event that began in 2017 before seeing his side rally to victory in London last year, was thrilled to celebrate a dominant triumph that began with a four-match sweep on Friday. “It felt unbelievable to kick their ass, baby,” McEnroe said. “They kicked ours many times, OK. It was a battle to the end when we won last year.”
SOCCER
Newcastle rout Sheffield 8-0
Newcastle United on Sunday thrashed Sheffield United 8-0 to shrug off their slow start to the English Premier League season. Saudi-backed Newcastle had lost three of their opening five Premier League games to dampen expectations of a title challenge on Tyneside, but manager Eddie Howe’s men showed no mercy as they put the Blades to the sword with ease. Three goals in 14 first-half minutes set the tone as Sean Longstaff, Dan Burn and Sven Botman put the visitors on course to cruise to victory. Callum Wilson, Anthony Gordon, Miguel Almiron, Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak were then on target after the break as the Magpies became the first side to have eight different goalscorers, not including own-goals, in a Premier League game. “The big thing for us was that we really wanted to score and we weren’t content with three,” Howe said. “I want that mentality to run through the team.”
SAILING
UK wins twice in a row
Ben Ainslie and Emirates Great Britain on Sunday earned their second straight SailGP regatta win and the US finished third a day after flight controller Hans Henken was knocked unconscious and hospitalized after the squad’s 50-foot (15m) catamaran crashed hard off its foils in strong wind in Taranto, Italy. Ainslie prevailed over three-time defending SailGP champion Tom Slingsby of Team Australia who came in second and Jimmy Spithill of Team USA in third. The Americans subbed in Taylor Canfield for Henken, who was expected to spend a second night in the hospital. The wind dropped off during the podium race and the 16-minute time limit expired, so race management awarded final positions based on the standings after five fleet races, which Ainslie dominated with finishes of 2-2-3-1-2.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For