Digest

SOCCER

Treble moves Neymar up Brazil's all-time list

Neymar scored a hat-trick to become the second highest scorer in Brazil's history as the Copa America champion won 4-2 away to 10-man Peru in a World Cup qualifier on Tuesday.

The goals took Neymar to 64 international strikes, two more than Ronaldo but still well behind Pele's record of 77.

Peru twice took the lead through Andre Carrillo and a heavily deflected strike from Renato Tapia, but two controversial Neymar penalties, an injury-time third and a close-range strike from Richarlison maintained the Selecao's winning start to qualifying for Qatar 2022.

Lionel Messi's Argentina lineup topped Bolivia 2-1, scoring its first win in the altitude of La Paz since 2005, to also make it two victories from two starts in the round-robin group stage.

Brazil leads the standings with a superior goal difference after thrashing Bolivia 5-0 in Sao Paulo last week in its opening game.

Also on Tuesday, Colombia was held to a 2-2 draw in Chile, Uruguay lost 4-2 in Ecuador and Paraguay beat Venezuela 1-0 away with an 85th-minute Gaston Gimenez goal.

Pressure mounts on Loew as Germany held

Joachim Loew's 14-year reign as Germany head coach is under pressure after his side's run of poor results continued with a 3-3 UEFA Nations League draw against Switzerland in Cologne on Tuesday.

Germany has drawn four of its last five games to leave it second in Group A4 behind Spain.

The Germans squeezed past Ukraine 2-1 in Kiev on Saturday and drew 3-3 at home to Turkey in a friendly last Wednesday. Loew's side was once again guilty of poor defending as it fought back from two goals down against the Swiss.

"Sure, when you concede three times, the defense isn't good," admitted midfielder Toni Kroos, who was at fault for the second Swiss goal in his 100th international appearance.

"We started badly but showed great attitude in coming back," said the 60-year-old Loew, who has a contract with Germany's soccer federation until the 2022 World Cup.

TENNIS

Murray's woes continue with defeat to Verdasco

Andy Murray suffered another first-round elimination on Tuesday, this time at the Cologne Indoors at the hands of out-of-form veteran Fernando Verdasco.

Verdasco exploited Murray's fragile serve to win 6-4, 6-4 in a match which finished after midnight local time. Verdasco, at 36 one of the few players older than the 33-year-old Murray in the tournament, broke the Scot's serve four times－once to love and three times to 15.

Murray lost in the second round of the US Open and in the first round of the French Open. He used wild cards for both of those Grand Slam tournaments and again in Cologne for his first loss on an indoor hard court since the 2015 ATP Tour Finals.

Verdasco ended a four-match losing run going back to January in the Australian Open. It was the Spanish player's second match since the tour resumed amid the coronavirus pandemic, his first being a one-sided loss to Damir Dzumhur in qualifying for the Rome Masters last month.

ICE HOCKEY

Vegas shuffles deck to gamble on Pietrangelo

Alex Pietrangelo is Las Vegas bound, and the Golden Knights are making big adjustments to their roster to fit him in.

Pietrangelo signed a $61.6 million, seven-year deal with Vegas on Monday that carries an $8.8 million annual salary cap hit through 2027.It's the fifth-biggest cap hit for a defenseman in the NHL.

Adding the top free agent available gives Vegas another big-money talent, but the team needed to make another move to shed salary just to add him. General manager Kelly McCrimmon said the front office knew that going in and committed to making it happen to sign the 30-year-old Pietrangelo.

Before finalizing Pietrangelo's contract, the Golden Knights traded defenseman Nate Schmidt to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2022 third-round pick, clearing his $5.95 million cap hit. McCrimmon said this was the only scenario in which Vegas would have considered trading Schmidt, and Vancouver became the beneficiary.

CYCLING

Giro rocked by spate of virus withdrawals

The Giro d'Italia was thrown into chaos on Tuesday when two full teams, another overall contender and one more elite rider withdrew from the cycling race following a series of positive tests for the coronavirus.

The Mitchelton-Scott and Jumbo-Visma teams left the race before stage 10.

Four Mitchelton-Scott staff members tested positive. That came after Mitchelton-Scott team leader Simon Yates withdrew before Saturday's eighth stage after also contracting COVID-19.

Dutch contender Steven Kruijswijk of Jumbo-Visma and Michael Matthews of Team Sunweb also tested positive amid 571 exams for all riders and staff members coinciding with Monday's rest day.

Kruijswijk and Matthews were withdrawn from the event.

Then Jumbo-Visma announced minutes before the stage started that it was withdrawing all of its riders－although the stage still started with the 20 remaining teams.

Xinhua - Agencies