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Fri/Sat/Sun March 16~18, 2018

LIONEL MESSI joined Cristiano Ronaldo in the UEFA Champi-ons League’s (CL) 100-goal club after scoring twice to lead Barcelona past Chelsea and into the Champions League quarter-fi nals for an 11th straight season Wednesday.

Messi also set up Ousmane Dembele in a 3-0 win at Camp Nou after he had scored Barce-lona’s goal in the opening-leg 1-1 draw in London.

Messi beat Thibaut Courtois with two strikes between the Chelsea goalkeeper’s legs from very tight angles on the side of the box. He struck the opener three minutes into the match and took Barcelona’s third goal in the 63rd.

“Messi is the player that makes the difference in each game. It is a blessing for this club to have him,” Barcelona midfi elder Andres Iniesta said. “I hope we can get close to winning the Champions League. We’ve taken another step.”

Ronaldo, with 117 goals, is the only other player to reach the century-mark in Europe’s elite club competition. Messi reached his 100th goal in 123 matches, while Real Madrid’s star needed 144 games.

But the most dazzling moment from the Argentina forward, who returned from missing one match for the birth of his third son Saturday, came when he helped Dembele score his fi rst goal for Barcelona after he stole the ball from former Barcelona teammate Cesc Fabregas and darted past two would-be tack-lers in the 20th.

Barcelona remained unbeaten in 25 straight Champions League

IT took two overtimes (OT), but the Washington Wizards went on the road to defeat the Boston Celtics 125-124 after a valiant comeback Wednesday.

Washington trailed 37-23 after the fi rst quarter, but ral-lied back in the second and third quarters to get back into the game.

Bradley Beal led the Wizards with 34 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.

Still playing without John Wall, the Wizards ran their offense through Beal, Otto Porter Jr. (18 points, 11 rebounds) and Markieff Morris (20 points, seven rebounds).

The Celtics, playing without Kyrie Irving (knee) and Al Hor-ford (illness), were led by Marcus Morris’ 31 points and nine rebounds. Terry Rozier added 21 points and nine assists.

Meanwhile, Jonathon Simmons and D.J. Augustin exploded Wednesday to help lead the Magic to a 126-117 win over the Bucks.

(SD-Agencies)

NEMANJA GUDELJ scored his fi rst goal for Guangzhou Evergrande as the two-time Asian Champions League (ACL) winner moved a step closer to the knockout rounds with a 2-0 win over South Korea’s Jeju United on Wednesday evening.

The Serbia midfi elder smashed his rising shot into the top corner from the edge of the area to give Guangzhou the lead before Alan Carvalho claimed his eighth goal in seven games in all competitions.

Gudelj has come under scru-tiny since joining Guangzhou in the winter as the replacement for Brazilian midfi elder Paulinho, who left midway through last season to join Barcelona, but coach Fabio Cannavaro defended the former Ajax midfi elder.

“I’ve never compared Gudelj with Paulinho and I won’t do that in the future,” Cannavaro said. “Gudelj had tendinitis in his Achilles when he arrived here. He was a bit late and he didn’t do 100 percent of our winter training.

“Now he has started to settle in and I’m very happy for him. He has worked very hard and goals are always the best payoff.”

The win moves Guangzhou to eight points from four games and a win over Thailand’s Buri-ram United in their next game April 3 will take the seven-time Chinese Super League winner into the last 16.

On an impressive night for Chinese clubs, Tianjin Quan-jian notched up a 4-2 win over two-time champion Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, with goals from Anthony Modeste and Alexandre Pato in the fi nal six minutes earning Tianjin all three points.

Wang Yongpo gave Tianjin the lead after just eight minutes before Kim Shin-wook levelled for Jeonbuk. Zhang Cheng headed the home side back in front 10 minutes in the second half only for Adriano to score.

The game looked destined for a draw but Modeste netted six minutes from time before setting up Pato to put the result beyond doubt deep into injury time.

(SD-Agencies)

TWO-TIME Olympic champion Lin Dan started his quest for a seventh title at the All-England Open by beating Hans-Kristian Vittinghus 21-19, 21-16 Wednes-day.

The 34-year-old Chinese star fi nished his opening match against the 21st-ranked Dane with a lively sequence of corner-to-corner clears, tight net shots, and trademark sliced smashes, which suggested that his moti-vation — perhaps not always at its most powerful in recent years — is fully back again.

His sharp movement and lively tactical eye were supported by unusually assertive words.

“I think today I played well and outplayed my opponent,” he said. “I think the All-Eng-land means more than the World Championships.”

Lin lost the World Champi-onships fi nal to Viktor Axelsen of Denmark in Glasgow seven months ago.

Axelsen is not here, and Lin looks in good shape for a prob-able quarterfi nal confrontation Friday with Lee Chong Wei, the top-seeded titleholder from Malaysia, who won 21-15, 21-17

Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele celebrates with Lionel Messi (R) after scoring their second goal against Chelsea at Camp Nou in Barcelona on Wednesday. SD-Agencies

GZ, Tianjin claim ACL victories

Guangzhou Evergrande’s Nemanja Gudelj celebrates after scoring against Jeju United during their match Wednesday. SD-Agencies

matches at Camp Nou, a run that dates back to 2013. The hosts also stayed in contention for a rare treble of titles. They lead the Spanish league and have reached the fi nal of the Copa del Rey.

Chelsea will now have to focus on fi nishing in the top four in the Premier League to return to tournament. It is currently in fi fth place.

Barcelona coach Ernesto Val-verde chose to start Dembele over midfi elder Paulinho, who played the match in London, which Chelsea largely dictated. The decision proved the right one when Messi linked up with the young winger to double the lead.

Iniesta returned from a muscle injury in his right leg suffered 10 days ago to play the fi rst hour for Barcelona, before he was substituted by Paulinho with the win in hand.

Chelsea boss Antonio Conte looked to repeat the team’s relative success at frustrating Barcelona’s attack from the fi rst leg with its back line of fi ve defenders.

But Messi needed very little to poke a hole in Chelsea’s wall.

Barcelona’s all-time leading scorer started an attack with a pass meant for Dembele that was twice defl ected before Luis Suarez deftly fl icked it back to

Messi. The Argentine targeted the only gap available: the slot in-between the legs of Courtois.

The second came after Messi swooped in to steal the ball from Fabregas in midfi eld and charged toward the box. After letting Suarez draw the remaining defenders to him, Messi passed across for Dem-bele to drive a rising shot over Courtois.

Also on Wednesday, Bayern Munich won 3-1 at Besiktas to advance 8-1 on aggregate. Thiago Alcantara and Sandro Wagner scored for Bayern and Gokhan Gonul’s added an own goal. (SD-Agencies)

Messi reaches 100 CL goals in Barca win

Wizards sneak past Celticsin double OT

Lin wins opening match at All-England Open

China’s Lin Dan in action against Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark during their match Wednesday. SD-Agencies

against Yvor Coelho of Brazil.Another front-runner for the

title, Kidambi Srikanth, the third-seeded Indian who is in the other half of the draw, had to save a match point at 19-20 in the third game against Brice Leverdez of France before win-ning 7-21, 21-14, 22-20.

Earlier, Ratchanok Intanon, who was the youngest ever world champion at 18 and the only Thai

player ever to be ranked No. 1, was surprisingly knocked out of the women’s singles by losing to Michelle Li of Canada 21-15, 14-21, 21-19.

“I don’t know what to say about it,” Intanon said. “It was not my best performance, but I know she can create and turn on the shadow and that made me feel more pressure.”

(SD-Agencies)