Roger Federer insists that Mario Ancic won’t catch him out again like he did when the Croatian sent him tumbling to an embarrassing Wimbledon defeat in 2002. The two meet in the French Open quarterfinals on Tuesday with the Swiss world number one still needled by that first round centre court defeat at the All England Club.
Edouard Michelin (43), who drowned on Friday in a boating accident, was hailed as a rising French business figure, having helped turn round the fortunes of his family tyre company at a young age. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said he was one of the ”rising figures” of the French economy.
Defending champion Rafael Nadal marked his 20th birthday with a gruelling 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win against Paul-Henri Mathieu on Saturday to set up a mouth-watering clash against Lleyton Hewitt for a place in the French Open quarterfinals. Hewitt, playing Roland Garros for the first time in two years, swept past Slovakian 22nd seed Dominik Hrbaty.
Raymond Triboulet, a World War II Resistance fighter who helped to stage the D-Day landings in Normandy before serving as minister under Charles de Gaulle, died on Friday at the age of 99. Enrolled in the French army and taken prisoner at the start of the war, Triboulet returned home under the German occupation in 1941.
Defending champion Rafael Nadal struck the first psychological blow in his French Open title duel against Roger Federer on Friday. While Nadal cruised into the third round with his 55th consecutive clay-court victory, Federer endured a lengthy struggle to put down the resistance of Chile’s Olympic champion Nicolas Massu.
Defending champion Rafael Nadal took his clay-court winning streak to 55 matches on Friday as he moved smoothly into the French Open third round. But 2004 champion Gaston Gaudio hammered out an ominous warning that he is returning to his best form by disposing of 2003 winner Juan Carlos Ferrero to move into the last 16.
Martina Hingis and Kim Clijsters ruthlessly exposed the gulf in talent in women’s tennis on Friday when both stormed effortlessly into the French Open third round. Hingis, the 12th seed and playing at Roland Garros for the first time in five years, crushed Zuzana Ondraskova of the Czech Republic, ranked a lowly 114 in the world, 6-1, 6-3 in just 49 minutes.
Lleyton Hewitt and Anastasia Myskina, two players with plenty to prove at the French Open, moved into the third round on Thursday. Hewitt, the former world number one, overcame a difficult first set before seeing off French wildcard Mathieu Montcourt 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 and now faces Slovakian 22nd seed Dominik Hrbaty for a place in the last 16.
Top seed Roger Federer and Russian golden girl Maria Sharapova lifted the Paris gloom on Wednesday when they shrugged off the bitter cold and rain-choked skies to reach the French Open third round. And women’s top seed Amelie Mauresmo recovered from second set jitters before overpowering Russia’s Vera Dushevina of 6-1, 7-6 (7/5).
As France’s Jacques Chirac enters the final year of his presidency, a spoof documentary out this week looks set to become an instant hit with its caustic look at his 40-year rise to power. Dans la peau de Jacques Chirac, a 90-minute collage of archive clips irreverently narrated by a Chirac impersonator, screened to hoots of laughter in Paris on Wednesday.
World number one Roger Federer shrugged off two rain interruptions before crushing Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the French Open third round on Wednesday and keep his Grand Slam dream on track. The Swiss top seed took just 86 minutes to wrap up victory against Falla, who looked every bit his 139 world-ranking.
America’s Andy Roddick and Nadia Petrova of Russia became the first major casualties of the 2006 French Open on Tuesday. Roddick, the fifth seed, retired from his first-round match with Spanish journeyman Alberto Martin trailing 6-4, 7-5, 1-0, still feeling the effects of the ankle injury he picked up at the World Team Cup in Germany last week.
Andy Roddick, the fifth seed, was knocked out of the French Open on Tuesday when he retired from his first-round match with Spain’s Alberto Martin. The American was trailing 6-4, 7-5, 1-0 when he called it quits. Roddick was always destined to struggle having picked up an ankle injury at the World Team Cup in Dusseldorf last week.
Rafael Nadal’s blockbuster success story opened another chapter on Monday when the Spanish teenager set a new record of 54 successive clay-court victories. Defending champion Nadal, the second seed, brushed past Sweden’s Robin Soderling 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 to get his French Open title defence off to a flying start.
Felix Moncada Suarez and his family had prepared themselves to board the flight from Roissy airport near Paris for the Ecuador capital Quito on the evening of May 19. It was not a flight they wanted to take. At the very last minute, the ministry of the interior reversed its ruling to expel the family from France.
Former champions Gaston Gaudio and Juan Carlos Ferrero, two of a host of men praying that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal lose their way at Roland Garros, reached the second round at the French Open on Monday. Argentinian 10th seed Gaudio, the 2004 champion, breezed past Croatian qualifier Roko Karanusic 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.
Khat chewers are at greater risk of heart disease and liver damage, according to a paper published by Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine, which says doctors should be trained to spot harm caused by this habit. Sagar Saha and Clare Dollery of Londons Heart Hospital cite the case of a 33-year-old East African man, a daily khat-chewer, who was admitted to their hospital with a heart attack.
The French Open started on a Sunday for the first time and nearly ended quickly for Maria Sharapova. The former Wimbledon champion overcame a gimpy foot, a 5-2 deficit in the third set and three match points to beat Mashona Washington 6-2, 5-7, 7-5.
Thierry Henry thinks Franck Ribery can surprise France’s opponents at the World Cup, and urges coach Raymond Domenech to pick him. ”He carries the expectations of a nation,” Henry said on Sunday. ”It is not easy. But I think he has the talent to do it. He is our trump card.”
A bid by India’s United Breweries to take over the French champagne group Taittinger has sparked concern among wine professionals in the company’s home region in Northern France. Welcomed by some as a chance to get a foothold in the Indian market, the -million bid is seen by others as a threat to the French system of locality-based appellations for wine.
Roger Federer gained an early psychological edge in his eagerly awaited French Open duel against Rafael Nadal when he enjoyed the lion’s share of fortune in Friday’s draw. The world number one, bidding to become the first man in 37 years to hold all four Grand Slam titles, was handed a comfortable-looking passage to the quarterfinals.
Experts call it the ”oil curse”. In Africa’s oil-exporting countries, only a tiny fraction of revenues is used to fight poverty, and in many cases black gold has actually become a hurdle to development. Oil in Africa — from the Gulf of Guinea to north-western Sudan — lies at the heart of questions of good governance and development.
An al-Qaeda-linked umbrella group in Iraq on Wednesday denied any link to a suspect, whose alleged confessions were aired on Jordanian television, in an internet statement posted on an Islamist website. "We don’t even know the individual shown on Jordanian television," the Mujahedin Consultative Council said.
Amelie Mauresmo goes into the French Open as top seed for the first time, but her hopes of finally banishing the demons that have haunted her at Roland Garros are endangered by a new and unexpected threat. Twelve months ago, no-one would have given credence to the idea that former tennis queen Martina Hingis could still win the one Grand Slam title that has eluded her.
Roger Federer’s dream of becoming the first man in 37 years to hold all four grand-slam titles will be at the mercy of Mallorcan muscleman Rafael Nadal when the French Open gets under way on Sunday. In the history of the game, only five men have won Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the Australian and United States Open crowns.
A knot of police officers rush into a burning office building to evacuate survivors. They hear a hellish rumble above and dash for haven in an elevator vestibule as the structure collapses around them. So begins Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, the first 25 minutes of which was previewed at the Cannes Film Festival.
A searing indictment of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi wrapped into a tender story of one man’s bid to overcome failure won a rapturous welcome from Cannes critics on Monday. Director Nanni Moretti’s film was released in March, just before the elections in which the conservative Berlusconi was narrowly ousted after five years in office.
The recent rock and punk revival is set to put guitar bands in the limelight again at this summer’s festivals across Europe, but the electronic music scene is fighting back with events of its own where vinyl and samplers rule. The undisputed leader is the Sonar festival in Barcelona, Spain, which runs from June 15 to 17.
Sex — in many forms and, in at least one case, unsimulated — is heating up screens at the Cannes film festival, confirming the event’s reputation for taboo-busting fare. About five films in the official selection alone have already shown enough nudity to mark them for mature audiences only, and one, Shortbus, by United States director John Cameron Mitchell, blurred the boundary between pornography and art with its actors engaged in real intercourse.
Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar went back to his roots on Friday, paying homage to his mother and all women in his haunting film Volver, already hotly-tipped for the coveted Palme d’Or prize. Penélope Cruz gives a stunning performance as a young, hardworking mother who has to confront the ghosts of her past.
Amid an unprecedented amount of hype and hoopla for an opening movie at the Cannes film festival, it took the inimitable Ian McKellen to knock Dan Brown and his swollen bestseller down to size with a single word — ”codswallop”. The Cannes film festival has an ambiguous relationship with Hollywood, on the one hand championing auteur cinema and film-making as an art, on the other lapping up blockbuster glitz.
Mittal Steel is to formally launch on Thursday a takeover bid for European rival Arcelor that would create the undisputed world champion of steel groups.
When trading begins on the Belgian, French and Luxembourg stock exchanges, Arcelor shareholders will have a chance to exchange their equity for Mittal shares and cash via an offer that currently values Arcelor at €22-billion $28-billion.