Medvedev will say at almost every available opportunity that clay is not his favourite surface – but that takes nothing away from Norrie, who was outstanding. Hitting with depth and pummelling his forehand in particular, he stuck in the rallies with the defensive Medvedev and returned serve well. He went a break down in the...
The BBC was given rare access to an operation by French troops, part of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as Unifil, as they searched for positions that were used by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah to carry out attacks against Israel. As part of a ceasefire reached in November that ended 13 months...
Four-time major winner Naomi Osaka said she “hates disappointing people” after she lost to Spain’s Paula Badosa in the first round of the French Open. Japan’s Osaka, 27, won her first title in almost two years earlier this month following a maternity break in 2023. Against Badosa she saved a set point before dominating the...
Fearnley was ranked outside of the world’s top 500 just 12 months ago but the 23-year-old has risen rapidly up the rankings to a career-high of 55. He will face either Christopher O’Connell of Australia or French 22nd seed Ugo Humbert in the second round. After clinching the opening set via a tie-break, Fearnley broke...
Victory was yet another illustration of Raducanu’s improved resilience. Raducanu has previously been accused of not showing enough determination to get through matches where she is not feeling 100% physically. Before the tournament the former world number 10 also described how she had felt pressured by previous coaches into playing when she knew she was...
Iran summoned France’s envoy in Tehran to protest against “insulting” remarks made by the French foreign minister after an Iranian filmmaker won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the prestigious Palme d’Or for his film It Was Just an Accident on Saturday, a political drama inspired by his...
Andrew Harding BBC Paris correspondent Getty Images Protesters outside the court in Vannes have turned out to show their support for Le Scouarnec’s victims It was supposed to be a defining, catalytic moment for French society. Horrific, but unmissable. Unignorable. The seaside town of Vannes, in southern Brittany, had carefully prepared a special venue and...
The LTA said in 2024 there were about 1,300 clay-courts in Great Britain. That is around 5% of the 23,000 total number of courts. In contrast, about 60% of courts in Spain – one of the leading nations on the surface – are clay. The National Tennis Centre has four clay courts, external and the...
This story contains distressing details from the start Joel Le Scouarnec, a former surgeon on trial in France who has admitted to sexually abusing hundreds of patients, mostly under age, said he considers himself “responsible” for the death of two of his victims. Over the last few weeks, the court was shown the photos of...
At least three people have died in floods caused by heavy rainfall and storms which have battered southern France since Monday. The bodies of an elderly couple were found in the seaside resort town of Le Lavandou, while another person died after becoming trapped in a car in Vidauban, local authorities reported on Tuesday. The...
Hugh Schofield Paris correspondent FRENCH PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE The contraband phones are the size of a cigarette lighter French authorities have launched a nationwide hunt for thousands of tiny Chinese-made telephones used by convicts to continue criminal activities from inside prison. The telephones, no bigger than a cigarette-lighter, are almost entirely plastic, and have a reputation...
France will build a new high-security prison in its overseas department of French Guiana to house drug traffickers and radical Islamists, the country’s justice minister announced during a visit to the territory. Gérald Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) newspaper that the prison would target organised crime “at all levels” of the drug supply...
An 81-year-old hunter in France has been fined and handed a four-month suspended jail sentence for killing an endangered bear in the Pyrenees mountains. The man said he had “no other option” but to open fire on the brown bear when it attacked him during a boar-hunt in 2021. Fifteen other hunters were also fined...
Hugh Schofield Paris correspondent Reuters France’s former interior minister has apologised for the first time for the 2022 fiasco at the Stade de France which saw Liverpool football supporters wrongly blamed for a riot. Gérald Darmanin admitted that security arrangements for the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid were wrong, and that his...
French police have rescued the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire who had been kidnapped and held for ransom in a Paris suburb. The unnamed man was attacked in broad daylight in central Paris on Thursday. He was bundled into a delivery van by four men wearing balaclavas, police sources told Le Figaro newspaper. French media...