Nicolas Sarkozy may be a teetotaller, but his wife’s much awaited ballad suggests he gives her even stronger stuff.
Rafael Nadal produced a flawless exhibition of claycourt tennis to demolish world number one Roger Federer 6-1 6-3 6-0 on Sunday and win his fourth straight French Open title.
Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic claimed her maiden grand slam title when she beat Russian 13th seed Dinara Safina 6-4 6-3 in the French Open final on Saturday.
Roger Federer said victory over Rafael Nadal in the final of the French Open on Sunday would be the crowning moment of his career.
Spaniard Rafael Nadal withstood a late fightback by Novak Djokovic to beat the world number three 6-4 6-2 7-6 at the French Open on Friday.
For once, Dinara Safina chose not to use up one of her ”many lives” on Thursday and swept into a French Open final against the new queen of women’s tennis.
Gael Monfils, riding a wave of passionate French support, and Novak Djokovic, the world’s best player in 2008, plan to derail Roger Federer’s and Rafael Nadal’s French Open semifinal ambitions.
Top seed Roger Federer powered into the French Open semifinals on Thursday, but he was given a scare early on by Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez.
Max Mosley will remain president of Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, after winning a vote of confidence on Tuesday from its members following his involvement in a sado-masochist sex scandal. FIA announced that Mosley had won 103 of 169 votes cast during an extraordinary general assembly at FIA headquarters in Paris.
Gael Monfils has found himself with the hopes of a nation on his shoulders after he blasted his way into the quarterfinals of the French Open on Monday with a four-set win over Ivan Ljubicic. No Frenchman has won at Roland Garros since Yannick Noah’s emotional triumph in 1983.
Top seed Roger Federer set up a French Open quarterfinal against old rival Fernando Gonzalez on Monday but he was below par in a 6-4, 7-5, 7-5 win over Frenchman Julien Benneteau in a rain-hit tie. Gonzalez had looked impressive earlier in the day when he swept past the final American, Robby Ginepri, in straight sets 7-6 (7/4), 6-3, 6-1.
Top seeds Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova both moved smoothly into the last 16 at the French Open on Saturday. Federer outplayed close friend Mario Ancic of Croatia, winning 6-3, 6-4 6-2 in cool, rainy, evening conditions on the Philippe Chatrier Centre Court. Earlier in the day, Sharapova defeated Italy’s Karin Knapp 7-6 (7/4), 6-0.
The Williams bandwagon rolled out of Roland Garros on Friday when sisters Venus and Serena were humbled in the third round by a pair of tenacious opponents who never lost belief. A day after the French Open lost three top-10 seeds, 2002 champion Serena joined them at the exit squeue as he roared and screamed her way to a 6-4 6-4 mauling by Katarina Srebotnik.
French Open drawcards Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova survived French Open scares on Friday but 2002 women’s champion Serena Williams was knocked out in her worst performance in Paris since 1999. Nadal needed treatment on his blistered right foot before brushing aside Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 to make the last 16.
Triple champion Rafael Nadal and the man whose ambitions he has thwarted each time in winning those titles, Roger Federer, both made smooth progress into the third round at the French Open on Thursday. Second seed Nadal brushed aside French qualifier Nicolas Devilder 6-4, 6-0, 6-1 to take his Roland Garros record to 23 wins in 23 matches.
Maria Sharapova almost became the first women’s top seed in French Open history to lose in the opening round on Wednesday as Rafael Nadal showed her the way to master a Roland Garros sandstorm. Russian golden girl Sharapova toiled for two-and-a-half hours before squeezing past teenage compatriot and world number 104 Evgeniya Rodina 6-1, 3-6, 8-6.
Torrential rain brought chaos to the French Open on Tuesday, with six hours of play lost and title favourites Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal amongst the victims of the deluge. Only 13 of the day’s planned 72 ties were finished in the three hours of play possible between the downpours, leaving 59 of 128 first-round meetings still to be completed.
Roger Federer cruised into the French Open second round on Monday while rival and triple champion Rafael Nadal was left kicking his heels in the locker room as torrential rain swamped Roland Garros. The world number one then had the unexpected bonus of seeing potential quarterfinal danger man Richard Gasquet pull out of the tournament.
Roger Federer cleared the first hurdle in his campaign to finally land the only Grand Slam title missing from his collection at the French Open on Monday. World number one Federer, still missing a Roland Garros title among his 12 Grand Slam trophies, saw off world number 40 Sam Querrey 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in his first-round match.
French fishermen headed into tense talks on Monday to decide on whether to keep up their strikes and blockades over fuel costs, as a hard-core fringe continued to disrupt port activities. About 50 fishermen from Brittany, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean were meeting in the key fishing port of Boulogne-sur-mer.
Gustavo Kuerten briefly rekindled his Parisian love affair on Sunday before bidding a tearful farewell to the French Open. The Brazilian has enjoyed a special relationship with Roland Garros since he celebrated his third and final triumph in 2001 by drawing a giant love-heart in the red clay with his racket.
The director of Entre les Murs, the French classroom drama that won the main Cannes film prize said on Sunday he had been deeply moved by the applause that met the film when it was shown at the festival. Entre les Murs (The Class) became the first French film in 21 years to claim the coveted Palme d’Or award at the world’s biggest film festival.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have turned to playing mind games ahead of the latest instalment of their epic French Open rivalry. Federer believes he is the more positive of the two men while Nadal, bidding for a fourth historic trophy, says the world number one’s decision to bring in Jose Higueras as coach could backfire.
A lack of memorable movies mean the 2008 Cannes film festival is unlikely to live long in the minds of many critics, who argue that after a solid start the main competition faded. With four out of 22 films in the main competition this year yet to screen, critics and journalists struggled to come up with many highlights.
Back after 19 years, the new Indiana Jones film premiered at Cannes. Charlotte Higgins reports from the festival.
Pete Sampras tried 13 times to win a French Open and 13 times he failed. Roger Federer, who is surely destined to surpass the American’s 14 Grand Slam titles, is about to embark on his 10th attempt to solve the intricate mysteries of the Roland Garros clay. The 12-time Grand Slam title winner, is enduring, by his lofty standards, a poor season.
Rafael Nadal’s ruthless pursuit of an historic fourth straight French Open title is likely to deliver another, possibly fatal blow to Roger Federer’s lingering dream of an elusive Roland Garros crown. The Spaniard boasts a perfect record of three titles and 21 wins in 21 matches since his debut in Paris in 2005.
Learning Latin, attending Catechism and hurrying along draughty corridors to prayer, two dozen boys are experiencing old-fashioned British boarding school life — deep in the French countryside. Boxing, folk-dancing and Gregorian chant also figure on the curriculum at Chavagnes International College, a traditional Catholic English boys’ boarding school on France’s Atlantic coast.
Diego Maradona, the Argentinian soccer genius notorious for the ”Hand of God” goal and a post-football descent into drugs, hits the big screen in Cannes on Tuesday in a documentary that also shows him as a staunch critic of the United States. Maradona is revered as a god-like figure in his home country.
They are the men who will reap the plaudits and milk the applause — the goal poachers who can grab glory for their nation in an instant. And they will deserve the adulation if they can rise above the increasingly defensive fare of the modern international game and the fear of losing, which hung heavy over the finals of both Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup.
New ideas, young talent and injections of money are needed to invigorate the war against Aids, top experts said on Monday at a review of medical progress since the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was discovered 25 years ago. Men and women in the front line of the combat said there had been some remarkable successes in fighting Aids.
Repressed memories, the horrors of war and Israel’s dubious role in a notorious Beirut refugee camp massacre are the themes of the Cannes film festival’s first ever fully-animated documentary. Ari Folman’s anti-war movie is premiered in Cannes as Israel celebrates its 60th year of existence and its neighbour Lebanon hits yet another political crisis pushing it to the brink of civil war.