Bono effortlessly worked the crowd. Half a globe away, Bjork strutted the stage. Bill Gates was cheered like a rock star. And on the continent that inspired the unprecedented Live 8 extravaganza, Nelson Mandela outshone them all. Live 8’s long, winding road around the globe on Saturday has been an eclectic marathon.
When Roger Federer clinched his latest berth in the Wimbledon final, he tossed his sweaty bandanna toward the crowd, leaving a mussed moptop as he walked off Centre Court. Unruly hairdo aside, the top-ranked Federer looked impeccable on Friday as he beat Lleyton Hewitt 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (4) in the semifinals.
An attack by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown on the ”hypocrisy” of Europe and other rich countries for pledging aid to Africa while imposing unfair trade barriers was today dismissed by the head of the European Union’s executive arm.
Roger Federer ruthlessly destroyed Lleyton Hewitt in a breathtaking Centre Court semi-final demolition to move just one win away from a third successive Wimbledon title on Friday. The 23-year-old world number one will face either last year’s runner-up Andy Roddick or Thomas Johansson in Sunday’s final.
Three-time Grand Slam champion Lindsay Davenport advanced to her first major final since 2000 on Friday when defeating Amelie Mauresmo in the Wimbledon semi-finals. Her opponent on Saturday will be two-time Wimbledon winner Venus Williams, who advanced on Thursday when she eliminated defending champion Maria Sharapova.
For television, this is the season of repeats. Nowadays the programmers are too canny to flag anything quite so boldly, however. They prefer to tempt the viewer by sticking words such as ”Revisited” or ”Second Helping” on the original title in the hope we’ll spend the whole show saying, ”Have we seen this before?” Sport is much the same.
The long-awaited Ashes cricket series hasn’t even begun and already football’s big spenders are starting to dominate the headlines. The big summer sale? Michael Owen, by the look of it. Though the former Liverpool striker has said he wants to stay with Real Madrid, word is that Chelsea is set to attract the him back to the Premiership.
Venus Williams believes her blistering path to her fifth Wimbledon final is the perfect response to the army of critics who had written her off as a spent force. The 25-year-old American ruthlessly destroyed defending champion Maria Sharapova 7-6 (7/2), 6-1 in Thursday’s semifinal with a brutal display of power-hitting that was aimed at her detractors as much as the Russian.
There’s more to healthy living than buying the odd slice of organic carrot cake, and our lackadaisical attitude to health is making bosses think more laterally about how to keep productivity up and absence levels down. Last year, United Kingdom businesses lost £12,2-billion through absence.
Wrinkles, receding graying hair and a furrowed brow attest to the difficulties of Tony Blair’s eight years in power. Yet despite a heart operation, back pain and the ever present rumblings of dissent within his governing Labour Party, Blair (52), insists his passion for politics is undiminished.
Lleyton Hewitt aims to shoot down Roger Federer’s reputation as the world’s greatest player in Friday’s Wimbledon semi-final showdown using ammunition supplied by the All England Club. The Australian, the champion in 2002, is furious that he was seeded at three instead of two which would have been in line with his world ranking.
This has been a bleak week for mankind. On Monday, Britain’s top chess player Michael Adams, who is rated seventh in the world, concluded his best-of-six-games match with the Hydra supercomputer. He had known that taking on this monster — a 64-way cluster computer that analyses 200-million moves per second — was going to be tough.
Pop stars and poverty in Africa will share centre stage on Saturday at the Live 8 mega-concerts, but doubts remain over whether the biggest music show on earth will be enough to spur world leaders into action. ”It is the biggest and best concert the world has ever seen,” said Oliver Buston, European director of Data (Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa).
That’s quite a cast Wimbledon came up with for the men’s semifinals: top-ranked Roger Federer, number two Lleyton Hewitt, number three Andy Roddick and … Thomas Johansson? The oldest player still in the tournament, Johansson is also the most obscure.
Bob Geldof, the force behind the biggest global music rally to help end poverty in Africa, has been raging against injustice since he burst onto the world stage as a young rock star in the 1970s. Three days ahead of his Live8 concerts, Geldof is one of the world’s most admired advocates for debt cancellation, greater aid and freer trade in Africa.
A leading London media lawyer is to advise on Saddam Hussein’s prospects of success in a high court human rights claim over photographs of him in his underpants which appeared on the front page of the Sun. Other pictures portrayed him washing his trousers, shuffling around and sleeping.
The refusal of Zimbabwe’s neighbours to condemn the ”outrages” taking place in the country has limited Britain’s ability to take action, Jack Straw admitted on Tuesday. ”The fundamental difficulty about doing more rests with the approach of African leaders, that is true,” the foreign secretary said.
Maria Sharapova will happily give up the gold by donating a pair of her new tennis shoes flecked with the precious medal to the Wimbledon museum. The teenaged holder, who is defending her title at this edition playing in new clothing — including the shoes — is so well kitted-out that passing along a dress and pair of trainers is absolutely no problem.
Three former winners and the best player still active not to have won the title will contest the Wimbledon women’s singles semifinals on Thursday. Title-holder Maria Sharapova takes on the 2000 and 2001 champion Venus Williams in a Russia-United States clash, while the 1999 winner and top seed Lindsay Davenport plays eternal French hope Amelie Mauresmo.
Eighty years have passed since Rudolph Steiner, the Austrian philosopher, gave the eight lectures that would form the basis of bio-dynamic farming. This agricultural movement has now spread around the world. Biodynamic food is beginning to penetrate the mainstream marketplace, albeit slowly, and gaining a reputation as it does so for exceptional quality.
Seventeen ships from five nations staged a mock sea battle off southern England on Tuesday to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, during which Admiral Horatio Nelson routed Napoleon Bonaparte’s French and Spanish forces and ensured that Britain ruled the waves for more than a hundred years.
The last time many fans saw Andy Roddick with a trophy, it was falling out of an overhead luggage compartment on an airplane and hitting him in the head. The TV ad still airs often, and Roddick was asked about it on Monday after reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinals.
Lleyton Hewitt is adamant that his fiery willingness to argue and dispute decisions does not give him an unfair edge over infuriated opponents. The 24-year-old Australian has never been far from controversy in his career and during his 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 6-3 fourth round Wimbledon win over Taylor Dent on Monday, the sparks were flying again.
Princess Diana had a passionate affair with John F Kennedy Jr, according to a new book on the late former wife of Prince Charles. Diana and Kennedy, who both died in tragic accidents in the 1990s, met in in New York in 1995 when the son of the assassinated United States president sought an interview with her for his magazine George, the Sun newspaper reported on Monday.
Roger Federer is desperate to clinch a third successive Wimbledon title to erase the misery of his 2005 Grand Slam flops at the Australian and French Opens. The top seed has captured seven titles this year and has lost just three times in 57 matches. But still the 23-year-old is not satisfied.
Harry Potter fever is gripping book stores across the world in the countdown to next month’s launch of the sixth volume in the boy wizard series, which looks set to become the biggest-selling novel to date. Multimillionaire author Joanne ”JK” Rowling is due to unveil Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, at midnight on the morning of July 16.
Marat Safin’s latest attempt to conquer Wimbledon ended in bitter disappointment and frustration on Friday when he was knocked out in the third round by Spanish serve-and-volleyer Felciano Lopez. The fifth-seeded Russian meekly surrendered the Court One tie to the man who beat him at the Olympics last year.
Sony’s PlayStation Portable is revelling in its status as this year’s must-have gadget. Gamers everywhere lust after its sleek lines and smooth curves — but beneath the hype, the PSP has suddenly found itself embroiled in a darker story. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is trying to get a high court injunction against a number of British companies to stop them importing the PSP from outside Europe.
Caffeine can help athletes by boosting the body’s absorption of carbohydrates, scientists at the University of Birmingham said on Wednesday. According to a study conducted by researchers at the university’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, introducing caffeine into sports drinks increases the absorption rate of carbohydrates by 26%.
French Open champion Rafael Nadal insists he will not be Wimbledon king this year despite his blistering passage into the second round. The 19-year-old, who one day hopes to become only the second Spanish men’s champion at the All England Club, crushed American veteran Vince Spadea 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 on his Centre Court debut.
The International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) said on Tuesday it is teaming up with a major international pharmaceutical manufacturer to develop an HIV/Aids vaccine using new technology. Once pre-clinical evaluations are completed, GlaxoSmithKline and the IAVI intend to carry out clinical trials.
BBC bosses are facing a talent-juggling act to keep a trio of former champions from verbal volleying in the broadcast booth at the Wimbledon Championships.
The volatile Jimmy Connors, one of the original bad boys of the game three decades ago, will be on hand along with Wimbledon TV regulars John McEnroe and Boris Becker.