Sports world daily: Bayern beat PSG in Champions League; SL off to fine start vs NZ in first Test

After another entertaining night of Champions League football, Bayern Munich have progressed to the quarterfinal for the 13th time in 15 years after ending Paris Saint-Germain’s run. Meanwhile, AC Milan also made it to the last eight after holding off Tottenham.

In tennis, the ATP and WTA Indian Wells Masters begins with Carlos Alcaraz hoping to regain his world No 1 rank, and Iga Swiatek looking to defent her women’s singles crown. Both, however, will face tough contest with a highly competitive field.

Over in New Zealand, where Indian cricket fans will have an eye on, Sri Lanka were off to a fine start in the first Test. The Lankans are in contention to pip India to the ICC World Test Championship final and must win both matches.

Here’s a look at the key stories from international sporting events through the day for 9 March, 2023:

Mendis stars as Sri Lanka dominate

Kusal Mendis made a lively 87 off 83 balls to put tourists Sri Lanka in the driving seat at 305-6 after the opening day of the first Test against New Zealand on Thursday.

At the close, Dhananjaya de Silva was unbeaten on 39 with Kasun Rajitha contributing 16 to an unbroken seventh wicket stand of 35.

New Zealand captain Tim Southee won the toss in Christchurch, where conditions were ripe for his seam attack to strike, but instead it was Sri Lanka’s band of classy batsmen who dominated.

It is a must-win Test for Sri Lanka to keep their World Test Championship hopes alive but veteran batsman Angelo Mathews said Mendis attacked as if he was playing an explosive game of Twenty20.

“He just walked straight into it and it was like a Twenty20 game,” Mathews said.

“In those conditions the way that he batted, it was more than a run a ball and it was quite fantastic to watch.”

New Zealand captain Tim Southee believed the momentum swung when Mendis was in full flight before lunch, taking Sri Lanka to a healthy 120-1 at the interval after being 14-1 in the seventh over when Oshada Fernando (13) was dismissed.

“We were a little bit off in that second hour and credit to Sri Lanka,” he said.

“The put loose deliveries away and scored at a good clip and got themselves out in front of the game at lunchtime.”

It was heavily overcast and the floodlights were on, but Sri Lanka’s second-wicket pair of Dimuth Karunaratne and Mendis racked a rollicking 137 off 27 overs, with Mendis belting 16 fours while Karunaratne contributed 50 off 87.

Mendis rode his luck, with some inside and top edges helping him reach a 16th Test fifty off just 40 balls.

He was looking for his eighth Test century but, with the score on 151, he was trapped in front by Southee to end a sparkling innings.

When Karunaratne followed without any addition to the total, caught at second slip for 50 by Tom Latham off Matt Henry, Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal put on 82 for the fourth wicket to lift Sri Lanka to 233-4.

Chandimal had negotiated some interruptions for rain to reach 39 when he became Southee’s 362nd Test wicket, moving the New Zealand captain past Daniel Vettori to second on the all-time list of New Zealand’s Test wicket-takers behind Richard Hadlee, who has 431.

It was a New Zealand record 706th international wicket for Southee across all three formats, one more than the previous mark he shared with Vettori.

Mathews drove Matt Henry to mid-on for two to reach the milestone of 7,000 Test runs, but he barely had time to acknowledge the achievement before he was dismissed next ball for 47.

Niroshan Dickwella went cheaply for seven before de Silva and Rajitha regained momentum for Sri Lanka.

Southee was the pick of the New Zealand bowlers with 3-44 while Henry chipped in with 2-65.

Choupa-Moting scores in Bayern’s win

Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting scored against his former club as Bayern Munich ended Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League hopes on Wednesday, beating the French club 2-0 in their last-16 second leg to reach the quarter-finals.

Choupo-Moting, who featured for PSG in their 1-0 Champions League final loss to Bayern in Lisbon in 2020, sidefooted the ball home after Thomas Mueller dispossessed Marco Verratti inside his own penalty area.

Substitute Serge Gnabry scored in the 89th minute to wrap up a 3-0 aggregate victory for the six-time European champions.

Bayern reached the last eight for the 13th time in 15 years, while PSG will need to wait at least another season to lift the coveted trophy for the first time.

Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann told DAZN his side “needed the crowd” to help them past PSG’s “brutal quality” in the opening half.

“In the second half we were much better than our opponents and deserved to win.”

Bayern were indebted to a fine goalline clearance by Matthijs de Ligt in the first period but were otherwise largely untroubled as Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi offered little.

“It worked, you need to say honestly that in a football game you need to have luck on your side,” said captain Mueller.

“If that became a 1-0, you don’t know how the team would react.”

The Qatari-owned French champions’ lack of squad depth was highlighted, despite the return to full fitness of Mbappe after he was limited to a substitute appearance in PSG’s 1-0 first-leg defeat.

Neymar is set to miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury, while they lost defenders Marquinhos and Nordi Mukiele to injuries during this game.

Coach Christophe Galtier lamented PSG’s failure to “make the most of our chances” and conceding “a really stupid goal” through Verratti’s error.

“There is frustration and disappointment in the dressing room,” he said. “We can’t repeat the match, we have to look ahead.”

AC Milan through to quarterfinal

Antonio Conte said Tottenham still need time to become a European force after bowing out in the last 16 of the Champions League 1-0 on aggregate to AC Milan after a 0-0 draw on Wednesday.

A European elimination hot on the heels of an exit from the FA Cup means Spurs’ 15-year wait to win a trophy will extend for at least another season.

Conte’s return to the touchline failed to inspire a response from his side as Tottenham were toothless in attack and had to play the final 12 minutes a man down as Cristian Romero was sent off for two bookable offences.

“I’m really sorry for the fans, but we cannot invent the win or to hope for a miracle one day that a trophy goes into our training ground,” said Conte.

“We have to build and have patience. I understand the fans don’t have patience as for a long time Tottenham is not winning.”

Victory over two legs takes Milan into the quarter-finals for the first time since 2012.

“We deserved this result, even though we could have scored more,” said Milan striker Olivier Giroud.

“We showed quality, spirit, and we could have won tonight as well.”

Alcaraz confident ahead of Indian Wells

Top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz can replace Novak Djokovic with a victory at the Indian Wells ATP Masters, and the 19-year-old Spaniard says he’ll give it all he’s got.

“I’m gonna go for it,” Alcaraz said on Wednesday as first-round matches got under way in the California desert.

Alcaraz is chasing a third prestigious Masters 1000 title, and if he’s successful he’d be just the second player, after compatriot Rafael Nadal, to bag three as a teenager.

The young star will face stiff opposition in former world No 1 Daniil Medvedev, who rolls into Indian Wells having won three straight tournaments at Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai.

Some gloss is gone with Djokovic, who won a 22nd Grand Slam title at the Australian Open this year, absent because of US restrictions on non-citizens who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19.

Injury forced Nadal out, but eight of the top 10 men in the world are here, including third-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas – runner-up to Djokovic in Melbourne – and fourth-ranked Casper Ruud.

Defending champion Taylor Fritz of the United States is seeded fourth ahead of Medvedev.

Fritz beat Nadal in a dramatic final last year to become the first American to win the men’s title in Indian Wells since Andre Agassi in 2001.

His current No 5 in the world rankings makes him the highest-ranked US man since Andy Roddick reached the same spot in September of 2009.

“Of course there’s a lot of great players in this draw who have a chance to win the tournament, but I say that I have my chances to win the tournament,” Alcaraz said.

“For me winning the tournament and being No 1 again is a really good goal.”

Alcaraz downplayed any lingering injury fears after pulling out of the ATP 500 in Acapulco last week with a right hamstring strain.

Alcaraz had been clearly hindered in falling to Cameron Norrie in the Rio Open on February 26, although he’d beaten Norrie seven days earlier in the final at Buenos Aires.

Alcaraz’s South American run followed a four-month injury layoff, during which he missed the Paris Masters with an abdominal tear and the Australian Open with a hamstring injury.

However, Alcaraz said he wasn’t overly concerned about the spate of injuries.

“I’m not worried about it at all,” Alcaraz said, adding that he thought it was largely a matter of “bad luck.”

“I’m doing the right things off the court,” he said. “I’m doing great work and I just had bad luck sometimes.”

While Tsitsipas downplayed his chances on Wednesday, saying he was still struggling with a shoulder injury he sustained after his run to the Australian Open final, Medvedev was understandably bubbling with confidence upon arrival in California.

“I feel great,” Medvedev said. “Of course, like always in tennis it’s a new week in completely the opposite side of the world, but the level of confidence is there.

“I never had three back-to-back titles, so feeling great.”

Swiatek looks to bounce back

Iga Swiatek, learning to navigate the expectations piled on a world number one, says she’s looking forward not back as she launches her title defense at the Indian Wells ATP and WTA Masters.

The 21-year-old from Warsaw took tennis by storm in 2022, her early-season victories including prestigious wins at Doha, Indian Wells and Miami.

She’d finish the year with two Grand Slam titles at the French Open and US Open, but said Wednesday she is trying to “not really think about what happened last year and remember that’s a different story.”

Swiatek was toppled by Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open round of 16, and after defending her Doha WTA title last month she was stunned in the Dubai final by Barbora Krejcikova.

“Sometimes it’s also important to remember that you can lose,” Swiatek said. “There are other players who are also playing great tennis. Last season spoiled me a little bit.”

She admitted that a stream of easy match wins – she hasn’t played a three-setter this year – might have let a little complacency creep in.

“I still have to kind of remember that I’m going to have tight matches and to fight for every ball,” she said.

While she and her coach assess each defeat and work to make adjustments, she said she tries to tune out criticism from outside.

Swiatek herself was pleased with her play in Doha and Dubai – noting that reaching both finals was, in fact, a strong result even if her loss to Krejcikova, a former French Open champion now 30th in the world – drew scrutiny.

“Last year, before all this huge streak, before winning all these tournaments, I would be so happy with the result, but because of these comments right now I felt like ‘Oh, that’s not enough,’” she said.

“So I’m trying not to read a lot of these things and I don’t want it to influence me because I’m happy with the work I’ve made and with how I played in, Doha and Dubai.”

Swiatek’s No 1 ranking is safe through Indian Wells and Miami, but she’ll be up against a quality field in the California desert, where she’s seeking to become just the second woman to defend the title after Martina Navratilova in 1990-91.

After a first-round bye she will open against either Alison van Uytvanck or Claire Liu. She could face a potentially tricky third-round clash with 2019 champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada.

Two other former champions are in the field, 2021 winner Paula Badosa of Spain and Belarussian veteran Victoria Azarenka, who won in 2012 and 2016.

Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka is the second seed, aiming to improve on a 2022 showing that saw her bow out in the second round.

Sabalenka will open against Evgenya Rodina, who beat France’s Alize Cornet 6-2, 7-5.

Home hope Jessica Pegula is seeded third and Ons Jabeur, a semi-finalist here in 2021 is seeded fourth in her first tournament since the Australian Open.

The Tunisian missed the WTA’s Middle Eastern swing after undergoing minor knee surgery.

With text inputs from AFP

Updated through the day