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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is still possible to reach a deal on long-delayed world trade negotiations before the end of the year, the head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said in an interview published on Tuesday. ”There are the political and technical conditions to wrap things up in 2008,” the WTO’s Pascal Lamy told the Les Echos newspaper.
Record oil prices and a slowdown in advanced economies are set to curb global oil demand despite growth in China and the Middle East, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast on Tuesday, saying stockpiling was a key factor. Demand from emerging economies might be set back if and when governments decide that fuel subsidies are unsustainable, the IEA said.
The United Nations’s new top adviser on food blamed two decades of wrong-headed policies by world powers for the food crisis sweeping the globe in a stinging interview published on his first day in office. Frenchman Olivier de Schutter told <i>Le Monde</i> newspaper the world needed to prepare for the end of "cheap food".
France needs to improve its tarnished image across Africa where it was once a powerful colonial power but now competes with countries like China for influence, according to a Foreign Ministry report. The ministry asked ambassadors stationed in Africa for their views on France’s image on the continent and summarised them in a report last autumn.
Pine beetles that have already destroyed huge swathes of Canadian forest are on pace to release 270 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2020, says a study released on Wednesday. That is the same amount of greenhouse-gas emissions that Canada is committed to reducing by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.
Speedo’s record-breaking suit may have got the backing of swimming’s world governing body, but it has caused a tidal wave of controversy as athletes battle to book their spot in the Beijing Olympics. The choice is clear — risk wearing a swimsuit that might be slower than those of your competitors, or break with your sponsor.
Fed up with the flaws of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain? Here’s your chance to set things right. An innovative website using Wikipedia-like collaborative software has given people around the world to design the perfect — if sadly fictional — candidate for the United States presidency.
Beleaguered French President Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to use a prime-time TV appearance this week to claw back public support after polls showed a majority of French people think his first year in office has been a failure. The anniversary has been marred by government infighting, policy U-turns and record low opinion polls.
France prop Pieter de Villiers has announced his retirement, saying he is tired of having to fight injuries. The South African-born player, who won 69 caps for France and five French titles with Stade Francais, said he had taken his decision after injuring his neck in a Heineken Cup match in Cardiff in December.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Friday that soaring world food prices can have dire consequences, such as toppling governments and even triggering wars. Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that the price hikes that have set off rioting in Haiti, Egypt and elsewhere are an ”extremely serious” problem.
A private United States collector has paid close to -million for the rare skeleton of a triceratops, a three-horned vegetarian dinosaur that roamed the Earth 65-million years ago, Christie’s auction house said on Friday. The unnamed collector paid €592 250 ( 167) for the near-complete skeleton.
French MPs on Tuesday approved a groundbreaking law against the promotion of anorexia, making it illegal to publicly incite excessive thinness. The Bill would bar any form of media, including websites, magazines and advertisers, from promoting extreme thinness, encouraging severe weight-loss or methods for self-starvation.
Staff at Le Monde, France’s newspaper of record, went on strike on Monday to protest plans to axe a quarter of its journalists and sell off several magazines. It is only the second time that journalists at the loss-making newspaper, founded in 1944, have walked off the job.
People searching the internet for information about suicide methods are more likely to find sites encouraging suicide than those offering help or support, according to a study released on Friday. The same set of search terms were fed into Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.
Pirates off the coast of Somalia released 30 hostages seized aboard a French yacht a week ago following negotiations that ended the stand-off peacefully, French officials said. The hostages, including 22 French crew aboard Le Ponant, were freed ”without incident”, President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement, without providing details.
Rembrandt and Rubens may be turning in their graves. The latest show at the venerable Louvre sees blood, bones and beetles cohabiting with the grand masters of the Dutch, Flemish and German schools. France’s biggest museum has invited a contemporary artist to show works ”in counterpoint” with those of the old masters.
France’s interior minister faulted the Chinese organisers of the Olympic torch relay for its chaotic run through Paris, saying in an interview on Wednesday that French police merely provided technical support. "The Olympic rule is that the organising country is always responsible for preserving the flame," Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said.
The Paris leg of the Beijing Olympic flame relay was cut short on Monday after citywide protests against China’s crackdown in Tibet forced the torchbearers to take refuge on a bus. The torch’s journey by foot ended outside the French Parliament, where protesting deputies hung a Tibetan flag on a railing.
French authorities were working on Saturday to free a luxury cruise yacht and its 30-member crew taken hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia. ”The defence and foreign affairs ministries are working to act as quickly as possible. I hope … to try to obtain the release of the hostages,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said.
France will not support bids by the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine to become members of Nato, putting it at odds with the United States, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday. ”France will not give its green light to the entry of Ukraine and Georgia,” Fillon told France Inter radio.