Schalke returned to its home stadium in the German League in the best possible way, after forcing its guest, Bayern Munich, the defending champion, to a goalless draw, on Saturday, in the second round of the “Bundesliga”, in a match whose first hero was goalkeeper Loris Karius.
Bayern entered the confrontation in high spirits after beginning the campaign to defend its title by sweeping Stuttgart 5-1, but Schalke, who returned this season to the top flight, refused to turn their first appearance at the Veltins Arena after returning into an outing for the Bavarian team.
Bayern imposed pressure in search of a goal that would break the hosts' resilience, and threatened Schalke's goal on more than one occasion, but Karius regained some of his old luster, and repelled dangerous attempts, most notably against Englishman Harry Kane and Colombian Luis Diaz, to keep his sheet clean until the final whistle.
The draw stopped Bayern's perfect start in the "Bundesliga", and gave Schalke a valuable point that carries great moral value at the beginning of its career after returning to the first division.
As for Bayern, they exited Gelsenkirchen with two lost points and an early message that the path to retaining the title may not be easy, before turning their attention to their next match in the Champions League against their Norwegian guest, Bodo Glimt, on Thursday evening.
American Amanda Anisimova, ranked tenth in the world and runner-up in the last edition of the US Open, the last of the four major tennis tournaments, bid farewell to the competition in the third round, after losing to Austrian Anastasia Potapova (25) 6-2 and 7-5, on Saturday.
Anisimova also had difficulty in the second round to overcome the other Austrian, Lily Tager (49), before deciding the confrontation in her favor 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
In front of Potapova, the runner-up in the 2025 edition of “Flushing Meadows” paid the price for her great risk and lack of accuracy, as she committed 46 direct errors, and only used three opportunities to break serve out of 16.
The Austrian won the match from the first match point, after Anisimova committed her 23rd direct error with a backhand kick, after more than an hour and a half of play.
In the quarter-finals, Potapova will meet the winner of the fifth match between Russian Mira Andreeva, who won the Roland Garros title in June, and Czech Nikola Bartonkova (34).
Chinese Cheng Qinwen succeeded in coming back from a 5-0 deficit in the decisive set to beat American Madison Keys 1-6, 7-6, 7-5 in the third round of the US Open Tennis Championship, on Saturday, while she is struggling to recover from a chronic right elbow injury that has hampered her career.
The Olympic champion was forced to compete in the qualifiers only two years after she reached the quarter-finals for the second time, in light of a decline in her career that forced her to undergo surgery last year, and she fell on the field in joy after the victory.
Keys, ranked 22nd, made an amazing comeback in the second round when she saved five match points against Anna Bondar, but luck was not on her side this time, as she squandered her lead and let the victory slip from her hands in the final moments of the match.
In the next round, Zheng will face either Iga Švūntek, winner of six major titles, or Czech Marie Bouzkova, who will face each other later on Saturday.
“Finally, I got a little lucky,” Cheng said. I am very happy, and I know that she made a strong comeback in the last match as well. “It was a very exciting match for me, but we both gave a very strong performance.”
Cheng lost her serve with a double fault in the fourth game, and Keys broke her serve without giving her any points in the penultimate game of the first set, as the American seemed on her way to winning easily.
But Cheng turned the tables in the second set, fighting back in the tiebreak before clinching the set with a powerful winner from the baseline.
Keys pressed hard in the third set, but Zheng was able to stop her momentum, saving a match point in the seventh game before getting a break of serve with a decisive forehand.
Keys' nerves began to collapse from that moment, as errors piled up on her before she lost the match at match point with a kick that went slightly outside the court.
