Sports Weekend

In the quarterfinals of the Erste Liga regional ice hockey competition, the Romanian team ACSH Gheorgheni defeated, away from home, the Hungarian team Dunaujvaros 6 to 1 on Thursday. Overall, the team from Harghita is now leading, in the double header, 3 to 0. Also in the quarterfinals, Corona Braşov defeated Sport Club Miercurea Ciuc, away from home, 5-2 and now leads 2-1 in the direct matches with the defending champion for a place in the semifinals.

We now go to tennis. Monica Niculescu stopped in the quarterfinals of the doubles event of the WTA 1000 tennis tournament in Dubai, which has prizes up for grabs worth almost 2,800,000 dollars. The Romanian-Belgian pair Monica Niculescu / Kimberley Zimmermann was defeated, on Thursday, by the pair made up of the American player Desirae Krawczyk and Demi Schuurs, from the Netherlands, 6-0, 6-4.

Next, football. On Thursday CFR Cluj missed the qualification in the round of 16 of the European Conference League competition. The Romanian champions ended the game with the Italian team Lazio in a draw, 0 all, in the second leg of the play-off for the round of 16. In the first leg, held last week, in Rome, the Series A team won 1-0. After the game in Cluj-Napoca, Romania no longer has a representative in this year's edition of the European Cups.

We now pass to football. From Friday to Sunday, football matches are played counting for the 27thstage of the Romanian Superleague football championship. Friday will see two games: FC Universitatea Craiova against Mioveni and UTA Arad against Farul Constanţa. Three matches are scheduled for Saturday. Hermannstadt goes to Sfântu Gheorghe to face Sepsi, then Universitatea Cluj receives the visit of FC Botoşani, after which Rapid plays Chindia Târgovişte in Bucharest. On Sunday, Universitatea Craiova has a match against Voluntari, then FC Argeş faces FCSB in Pitesti. The last game of the stage will take place on Monday, in Ploiesti, between Petrolul and CFR Cluj. Farul Constanţa leads the ranking, with 55 points, followed by CFRwith 53 points. (LS)