MADRID: Surprise package Club Brugge booked their place in the Champions League last 16 with a 0-0 draw against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday.
The Belgian side are guaranteed to progress from Group B after keeping Diego Simeone’s side at bay in Madrid, and finished the game with 10 men after Kamal Sowah was sent off in the final stages.
Brugge stunned Atletico last week at home with a 2-0 win and although they dropped their first points of the competition at the Metropolitano, still secured qualification for the knock-out rounds.
Goalkeeper Simon Mignolet made a series of impressive saves to deny the likes of Antoine Griezmann and Angel Correa, frustrating the Spanish side, who are on four points from four games, six behind Group C leaders Brugge.
The visitors had the better of the opening stages, with Ferran Jutgla, who shone last week against Atletico, going close.
However, Simeone’s side wrestled their way into the game and Mignolet denied Griezmann at the other end.
Saul Niguez had a goal ruled out for offside against Correa in the build-up, and the Argentine soon fired narrowly wide himself, as Atletico began to dominate.
Brugge thought they had earned a penalty at the end of the first half, but the decision was overturned by VAR, with Tajon Buchanan appearing to step on Nahuel Molina, rather than the reverse.
Correa struck shortly after the interval, but he was offside too, and it was stricken from the records. Brugge’s task of holding on for the point was made harder in the final stages when Sowah was shown a second yellow card for kicking the ball away.
Atletico substitute Joao Felix threw his bib away angrily toward the end of the game when it became apparent Simeone was not planning to bring him on, as tempers frayed.
Correa might have won Atletico the game at the death but Mignolet made another fine save to deny him.
Bayer Leverkusen host Porto in the other Group B game later Wednesday.
Club Brugge earn Atletico draw to reach Champions League knock-outs
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Club Brugge earn Atletico draw to reach Champions League knock-outs
- The Belgian side are guaranteed to progress from Group B after keeping Diego Simeone’s side at bay in Madrid
- Brugge stunned Atletico last week at home with a 2-0 win
Siniakova ends Andreeva Indian Wells defense in third round
- Siniakova, a former doubles number one, will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or American Ashlyn Krueger for a place in the quarter-finals
INDIAN WELLS, United States: Unseeded Katerina Siniakova ended a frustrated Mirra Andreeva’s Indian Wells title defense on Monday, rallying for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over the eighth-ranked Russian.
The 18-year-old Andreeva had opened her repeat bid with an imperious 6-0, 6-0 demolition of Solana Sierra.
But she was in trouble early and often against 44th-ranked Siniakova in a rollercoaster contest that featured seven service breaks for each player and 43 break chances between them.
When she sailed a swinging volley long to surrender the second set, Andreeva threw her racquet in disgust.
She regrouped to break Siniakova for a 3-2 lead in the third, but Siniakova won the next four games.
The Czech saved a pair of break points in the final game before sealing the match with a shot that struck the net cord and dribbled over as Andreeva could only watch, disappointment sparking another outburst from the Russian as she departed the court.
Siniakova, a former doubles number one, will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or American Ashlyn Krueger for a place in the quarter-finals.
In other early matches, fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula shook off a slow start to beat Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, coming off her fourth career WTA 1000 title at Dubai last month, fired 11 aces with just one double fault as she rallied for the win.
“I think today I had to kind of snap myself back and kind of lock in to not let that get away from me,” said Pegula, who said she was in danger of letting negativity and frustration get the better of her.
“I didn’t think I was playing bad. It was just letting a couple chances, couple breaks here and there (get away), maybe a couple shots that I could have been more aggressive on.”
Later on Stadium Court, world number two Iga Swiatek took on Greece’s Maria Sakkari — the woman she beat in the Indian Wells finals in 2022 and 2024.
Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, who lifted the Indian wells Trophy in 2023, played Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in the final match of the night.
