Nobody can stop Roger Federer on grass. Number one got even against number two as Federer ended a five-match losing streak to Rafael Nadal on Sunday, winning 6-0, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (2), 6-3 to earn his fourth straight Wimbledon title and eighth Grand Slam championship. Nadal had beaten Federer in four finals this year, including at the French Open last month, but couldn’t match him on the Swiss star’s favourite surface.
Amelie Mauresmo became the first Frenchwoman in 81 years to win the Wimbledon singles title when she conquered a severe bout of stagefright to beat Belgium’s Justine Henin-Hardenne 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Saturday. The 27-year-old’s victory was also her second career Grand Slam victory and was the first step towards what could be a memorable weekend for French sport with France facing Italy in the World Cup final in Berlin on Sunday.
The Falcons recorded their first victory in the Currie Cup rugby competition when they beat the Griquas by 23-8 at the Bosman stadium on Saturday. The Falcons scored three tries to one and led by 6-5 at the break. The home side ground the visitors down in a hard fought contest for sixty minutes before taking control of the game in the last quarter.
Three Palestinian family members, including a six-year-old girl, were killed on Saturday in an air strike on Gaza City as Israel rejected a call by Hamas premier Ismail Haniya for a mutual ceasefire. The girl, her elder brother and her mother were killed in the air raid which according to an army spokesperson targeted a group of militants east of Gaza City.
For the past few months, I’ve been woken in the half-light just before dawn by the noise of crazed laughter coming from the park behind our house. To begin with, it was hard to be sure that it was human laughter and not just the cackle of wild dogs, but later I started seeing people walking home at about 6.30am, clapping their hands and laughing triumphantly to themselves.
Visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki has been supportive of European Union plans to send up to 2Â 000 soldiers to the Democratic Republic of Congo before and after free elections, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday.
Fela Yunga, better known in his neighbourhood by his rap name XV Venom, will on Sunday sit down with his two brothers on the worn sofa in his parents’ council flat in Paris’s run-down 19th arrondissement. With a prison record, no real educational qualifications, an eye for girls and a thriving business selling T-shirts, Yunga, raised in France but born in the Democratic Republic of Congo 24 years ago, is hardly the model French citizen.
A Kenyan team on Saturday won the first street football world championship, beating South Africa 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out. Twenty-two teams of youngsters from poor backgrounds had taken part in the week-long tournament in Berlin, focusing attention on the game’s gritty origins and its power to fight social ills.
A local journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo was shot dead on Saturday at his home in Kinshasa, press rights group Journalists in Danger (JED) said, calling it an ”ignoble crime”. Bapuwa Mwamba (64) was killed by three armed men around midnight at his house in the Matete district where he lived with a nephew, JED said.
More than 150 people died, including all the crew, when a Russian Airbus A-310 with 200 people on board crashed early on Sunday while landing at Irkutsk airport in Siberia. The Airbus went off the runway while landing and hit a concrete wall before catching fire. The plane’s cabin was wrecked and the passengers had to be evacuated from the rear of the craft, rescuers said.