SOCCER
Manchester City and Real Madrid marched on with a third straight win in the Champions League on Wednesday, and former Madrid coach Julen Lopetegui was fired by struggling Sevilla minutes after a 4-1 loss at home to Borussia Dortmund.
Erling Haaland was needed on the field for only the first half, yet still scored twice in a 5-0 rout at home against Copenhagen.
Three days after seeing its perfect start to the season end with a draw in the Spanish league, Real Madrid beat Shakhtar Donetsk, 2-1, to take full control of Group F.
Rodrygo and Vinicius Junior scored in the first half as the defending champions cruised to a third straight victory in the European competition. The result at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium gave Madrid a five-point lead over Shakhtar.
• Leipzig earned its first win of the Champions League season by beating Celtic 3-1, thanks to two late goals from Andre Silva and a defensive error from visiting goalkeeper Joe Hart.
Christopher Nkunku also scored as Leipzig finally got off the mark in Group F after losses to Shakhtar Donetsk and Real Madrid. But the win came at a cost, as goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi had to be carried off early because of an apparent right knee injury.
• Paris Saint-Germain was held for the first time despite Lionel Messi’s fine opening goal in a 1-1 draw at Benfica.
Also in Group H, Juventus got its first points with a 3-1 win over Maccabi Haifa.
• Chelsea got its first win in the competition for its new coach, Graham Potter, cruising past AC Milan 3-0, though Salzburg now leads Group E after a 1-0 win over Dinamo Zagreb.
GERMANY: Bayer Leverkusen hired former Liverpool and Real Madrid star Xabi Alonso as coach after firing Gerardo Seoane on Wednesday.
AUTO RACING
NASCAR: NASCAR levied a heavy fine against Kevin Harvick, one of the most outspoken drivers about safety concerns on the Next Gen car, for alleged modifications found on his Ford at Talladega Superspeedway.
NASCAR docked both Harvick and Stewart-Haas Racing 100 points each, fined crew chief Rodney Childers $100,000 and suspended Childers for the next four races. NASCAR said the penalties were for “modification of a single source supplied part.”
• AJ Allmendinger’s NASCAR career will come full circle in 2023 when he returns to the Cup Series full time to drive for Kaulig Racing.
Allmendinger retired after the 2018 season but was lured back into competition by his close friends Matt Kaulig and Chris Rice. The duo was attempting to build Kaulig Racing into a legitimate team that could move to NASCAR’s top series and coaxed Allmendinger into helping.
He started with five Xfinity Series races in 2019, and Kaulig persuaded Allmendinger to increase his schedule to 11 races the next year. By 2021, as Kaulig was preparing to move up to the Cup Series, Allmendinger ran five Cup races and the full Xfinity Series schedule.
Kaulig Racing is now a two-car Cup team with Justin Haley as its full-time driver; its second car is used for “trophy hunting,” and Allmendinger already has driven it 13 times this season. Now, fresh off a win last week at Talladega Superspeedway that pushed Allmendinger into the next round of the Xfinity Series playoffs, the 40-year-old will return to NASCAR’s top level next year in the No. 16 Chevrolet.
FORMULA ONE: Formula One’s governing body has delayed publishing the findings of an investigation into whether teams broke the budget cap last season, saying its verdict will come next week.
F1 set a budget cap of $145 million last year, when Red Bull driver Max Verstappen narrowly won his first world title after beating Lewis Hamilton in a controversial finish to the last race. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner last weekend angrily hit back at what he called “fictitious claims” that the team had gone above its budget, which could be punishable by a ban.
The results of an analysis by governing body FIA were initially due Wednesday, with Aston Martin reportedly another team that allegedly breached the cap.
TENNIS
ASTANA OPEN: Novak Djokovic delivered a near-flawless performance to ease into the second round in Kazakhstan with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Cristian Garin as he goes for a third straight tournament title.
Djokovic dropped just six points on his serve and won the last five games to seal the win in just 62 minutes.
AGEL OPEN: Top-ranked Iga Swiatek advanced to the quarterfinals after Ajla Tomljanovic retired because of a knee injury during the second set of their second-round match in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
The U.S. Open champion was leading 7-5, 2-2.
JAPAN OPEN: Denis Shapovalov put up a near-perfect serving performance to beat Steve Johnson, 6-3, 7-6 (3).
The seventh-seeded Canadian conceded only one point on his first serve and had 11 aces. Shapovalov, who lost in the semifinals four years ago, will next take on Japanese qualifier Rio Noguchi for a place in the quarterfinals.
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