PARIS: Real Madrid were handed a quick rematch with Jose Mourinho’s Benfica in the draw for the Champions League play-off round on Friday, while reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain will face domestic rivals Monaco.
Benfica beat Real 4-2 in their final game of the league phase on Wednesday, with a 98th-minute goal by goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin proving decisive in allowing the Portuguese side to snatch the last play-off spot ahead of Marseille, who were eliminated altogether.
The defeat also nudged Madrid out of the top eight places in the league standings, which give direct access to the last 16, forcing them into this extra round.
Benfica staged a remarkable recovery to take a play-off place — they finished 24th in the 36-team league phase, the last qualifying spot — by winning three of their last four matches after losing their opening four games.
Mourinho, 63, returned to the Lisbon giants for a second spell as coach in September. He was in charge of Real from 2010 to 2013 and won one La Liga title and one Copa del Rey while also taking them to the Champions League semifinals in each of his three campaigns.
The clubs played each other in the 1962 European Cup final, with Benfica winning 5-3 to claim the last of their two titles to date.
PSG slipped out of the top eight after winning only one of their last five outings in the league phase and finishing in 11th place.
They will go to Monaco for the first leg and will be wary of the principality side who beat them there in Ligue 1 in November.
However, 2004 Champions League finalists Monaco have been in poor form, with just one win in six games since the turn of the year.
They are 10th in Ligue 1, 21 points behind leaders PSG. However, a 0-0 draw with Juventus on Wednesday allowed them to secure a play-off place in Europe.
Newcastle go to Azerbaijan
PSG also beat French opposition in the play-off round last season, hammering Brest 10-0 on aggregate before going on to lift the trophy for the first time in their history.
Elsewhere, Newcastle United will be strong favorites against surprise packages Qarabag of Azerbaijan, with the first leg to come in Baku.
PSG and Newcastle know that if they win, they will play either Barcelona or Chelsea in the last 16. Real’s possible last-16 opponents are Manchester City or Sporting, which would mean yet another trip to Lisbon in the latter case.
Bodo/Glimt, Norwegian champions in four of the last six years, were also surprise qualifiers for this stage and have been rewarded with a tie against last season’s runners-up Inter Milan.
Juventus will take on Galatasaray, while Atletico Madrid face Club Brugge. Borussia Dortmund play Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen were drawn against Olympiacos.
The two-legged play-off ties will take place in February, with the winners advancing to the last 16 in March.
Already through to that stage are the top eight teams from the league phase, including five English Premier League sides in Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and City, as well as Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Sporting.
This season’s Champions League final will be played in Budapest on May 30.
Real Madrid to play Benfica, PSG face Monaco in Champions League play-offs
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Real Madrid to play Benfica, PSG face Monaco in Champions League play-offs
- Real Madrid were handed a quick rematch with Jose Mourinho’s Benfica in the draw for the Champions League play-off round on Friday, while reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain will face dome
Djokovic edges Kovacevic to reach Indian Wells last 16
- With five Indian Wells titles Djokovic is tied for the record with Swiss great Roger Federer
INDIAN WELLS, United States: Novak Djokovic clawed out a 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 victory over 72nd-ranked American Aleksandar Kovacevic on Monday to reach the fourth round at Indian Wells for the first time since 2017.
Djokovic, playing his first tournament since falling to Carlos Alcaraz in the Australian Open final, had all he could handle from the 27-year-old New Yorker, who peppered the Serb superstar with 16 aces.
Djokovic made an early break stand up to take the first set, but Kovacevic had found his groove and rolled through the second against a clearly frustrated Djokovic.
Djokovic regrouped in the third — finally finding the break he needed in the final game.
“I knew coming into the match that if he serves well and if he picks his spot in the box it’s going to be tough to break him,” Djokovic said.
“I wasn’t maybe feeling my rhythm on that return very well today, but he was just making my life very difficult, returning the serve.
“He was just acing me all over, getting a lot of free points.
“Today was really anybody’s game until the last couple of points. That last game in the third where he missed some first serves, gave me looks on the second and I used it. That’s pretty much it.”
With five Indian Wells titles Djokovic is tied for the record with Swiss great Roger Federer.
But the Serbian superstar hasn’t made it to the quarter-finals in the California desert since his last title run in 2016 and now he’s had to come through a pair of three-setters to return to the last 16.
He’ll face defending champion Jack Draper for a place in the quarter-finals after the Briton beat Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo 6-1, 7-5.
Draper’s victory here last year — featuring a semifinal win over Carlos Alcaraz — launched his rise to fourth in the world.
But he then missed the better part of six months with an arm injury and arrived in California ranked 14th, his win over Cerundolo marking the first time since June that he’s posted back-to-back ATP victories.
Cerundolo served for the second set at 5-4, but a few mistakes gave Draper an opening and the Briton broke back, saving a pair of break points in the next game before finishing it off on Cerundolo’s serve.
A pair of top-10 seeds were sent packing as Britain’s Cameron Norrie ousted eighth-ranked Australian Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-4 and Aussie qualifier Rinki Hijikata 10th-ranked Alexander Bublik 6-7 (3/7), 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.
Hijikata, ranked 117th in the world, claimed his first win over a top-10 player to advance to a meeting with Norrie.
Alcaraz, riding a 13-0 match winning streak as he chases a third Indian Wells title, headlined the night session, taking on France’s Arthur Rinderknech.
The 22-year-old Spaniard’s Australian Open triumph made him the youngest man to complete a career Grand Slam, and he followed up with a title in Doha in February.
Now Alcaraz is aiming to return to the winner’s circle in Indian Wells, where his bid for a third straight title last year was derailed by Draper in the semifinals.
