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Tuesday August 29, 2017

LEWIS HAMILTON held off Sebastian Vettel to win on his 200th Grand Prix start at Spa-Francorchamps and halve his rival’s advantage in the battle for the Formula One title.

The Mercedes driver took pole to match Michael Schumacher’s record of 68 Saturday and fended off Vettel to claim victory in the Belgian Grand Prix for a third time a day later.

“Sebastian put a great fi ght on but this is what I said I was coming to do so I did it,” Ham-ilton told the crowd from the podium.

Hamilton was disgruntled when a safety car was deployed late in the race following a colli-sion between Force India team-mates Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, but stayed out in front on a second set of soft tires with Vettel unable to catch him on ultrasofts.

Hamilton trails Vettel by only seven points after taking the checkered fl ag 2.358 seconds in front of the Ferrari driver, who was unable to celebrate his new three-year deal with a win in the fi rst race after the mid-season break.

“It was really intense because

MARCO ASENSIO was impres-sive again, but his two remark-able goals were only enough to salvage a 2-2 draw against Valencia in Real Madrid’s home opener in the Spanish league on Sunday.

Asensio scored the second of his two goals with a free kick in the 83rd minute at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

The disappointing result left the defending champions two points behind Real Sociedad, Barcelona and Leganes — the three teams that have won each of their fi rst two matches.

“We deserved more, but you can’t always win,” Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said.

Asensio scored Madrid’s opener in the 10th with a neat run through the middle after a defensive blunder by Valencia. Asensio calmly fi nished with a well-placed left-foot shot into the left corner.

His second goal came only six minutes after Valencia had taken a 2-1 lead. He struck a low free kick that went around the wall and was too much for Valencia goalkeeper Neto. (SD-Agencies)

LIVERPOOL tore Arsenal apart with a devastating attacking display Sunday, producing a 4-0 victory in the Premier League that exploited an error-strewn performance by the London club.

Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah spear-headed the powerful assault on the feeble visitors at Anfi eld. Humiliation for Arsenal was complete when Mane’s replace-ment, Daniel Sturridge, fi nished off yet another counterattack to net the fourth in the 78th minute.

“We wanted to show our desire, our greed, our ambitions against a very strong side,” Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said. “We didn’t think about winning the game, we thought about the performance. The performance was perfect and the result is the result of the performance.”

Arsenal didn’t even manage a single shot on goal, ensuring it was a quiet day for Loris Karius, who was unexpectedly selected ahead of fi rst-choice goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.

“Today we were an easy oppo-nent for Liverpool,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. Asked what went wrong, Wenger said: “Everything.”

It was a complete and potent display by Liverpool, even without Philippe Coutinho on the pitch as the Brazilian still tries to force his way out of the club before the transfer window closes Thursday night.

Coutinho is chasing the major trophies eluding Liverpool for many years, with the league last won in 1990 and the Champions League in 2005.

While such a ruthless rout of Arsenal will raise expectations around Liverpool, it followed an underwhelming start to the league campaign that saw Klopp’s side draw the opener at Watford then claim a narrow win at Crystal Palace.

But victory capped a week when Liverpool secured its return to the Champions League after a three-year absence, a competition Arsenal will be missing from for the fi rst time in 20 years. (SD-Agencies)

VIKTOR AXELSEN held his nerve to win his fi rst Badminton World Championship title at the expense of his idol, the great Lin Dan, dubbed as Super Dan, on Sunday.

When fi ve-time champion Lin’s backhand couldn’t retrieve a smash, Axelsen won their fi nal 22-20, 21-16 and turned to his coaches with shock on his face and his hands on his head.

“Lin Dan is an idol for me, it’s just unreal,” said the fi rst male champion from Europe in 20 years.

The women also produced a fi rst-time winner. Nozomi Okuhara beat Pusarla Sindhu of India with a cross-court drop shot to fi nish the longest match of the championship and one of the greatest fi nals in badminton history.

With both players almost dead on their feet after nearly two hours, Okuhara won the grip-ping fi nal 21-19, 20-22, 22-20 to become the fi rst women’s singles champion from Japan.

“I am very tired,” she said.Axelsen won the junior world

title in 2010, but expectations of him cooled as he failed to pro-duce a breakthrough win. He was third at the Olympics last year and won the World Superseries Finals in the absence of the rest-ing big names. The breakthrough fi nally came this week, as he brushed aside Olympic, world and Asia champion Chen Long in the semifi nals, and dismissed Lin without dropping a game to either Chinese star.

He saved a game point for Lin in the fi rst game of the fi nal with a smash down the line, earned

Axelsen topples Super Dan in fi nal

game point himself, and took it when Lin hit long.

In the second game, Lin was strangely passive, and Axelsen ripped ahead 18-11. With yet another smash of another defen-sive return by Lin, Axelsen had four match points and converted the fi rst.

“If you could see me on the inside, I was shaking,” Axelsen said. “In the second game I kept telling my coaches, ‘I am so ner-vous right now.’”

It was Lin’s fi rst loss in a worlds fi nal since his fi rst, 12 years ago.

Sindhu, tall with a signifi cant reach and two previous world

bronze medals, started the fi nal appearing stronger. But the smaller, speedy Okuhara sud-denly found another gear and edged the fi rst game.

Every rally seemed to be played as if it was match point, as they pushed each other to all corners; Sindhu patiently wait-ing for a fl oater to smash, and Okuhara bashing at Sindhu’s forehand side to set up a drop shot winner.

In the second game, Okuhara saved three game points by forc-ing errors; they played 33 shots for 20-20. On Sindhu’s fourth game-point, she won after a rally lasting 73 shots. The gasps

from the crowd grew louder and louder until Okuhara batted the shuttle into the net and collapsed on the fl oor. Sindhu bent over, too tired to acknowledge the crowd’s standing ovation.

Both players showed signs of fatigue in the third, but as tired they were, neither would con-cede. The rally for 13-13 went 42 shots.

Okuhara was fi rst to match point, but wasted it when she let a Sindhu shot sail past, and watched it fall in. Sindhu netted to give Okuhara a second match point, and the Japanese opened the court to make a drop-shot winner. (SD-Agencies)

Liverpool routs Arsenal 4-0

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (C) celebrates winning the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix alongside third-placed Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo in Francorchamps, Belgium, on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger looks dejected during his side’s match against Liverpool in Liverpool, Britain, on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen reacts after beating China’s Lin Dan at the Badminton World Championships in Glasgow, Britain, , on Sunday. SD-Agencies

Hamilton wins landmark Belgium Grand Prix

every lap I was waiting for Lewis to do a mistake. He didn’t,” said Vettel, whose next race is Ferra-ri’s home Italian GP at Monza.

“He was probably waiting for me to make a mistake. I didn’t,” added the German, who set a race lap record of 1 minute 46.577 seconds in the closing stages.

Daniel Ricciardo took third place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who was given a 10 second stop-go penalty after failing to

slow for double yellow fl ags.Valtteri Bottas fi nished fi fth

after dropping back following the restart, while Max Verstap-pen endured more misery as he retired for the sixth time this season.

“It’s pretty much for all the Dutch here, so thanks for hang-ing around,” said Ricciardo, whose teenage teammate Max Verstappen retired shaking his head in sheer frustration after eight laps. (SD-Agencies)

Real held 2-2 by Valencia