‘Love is the key, right?’ Evergreen Venus Williams plays on and on at 45
“Still haven’t seen the Rolling Stones,” says Venus Williams, smiling, as she reminisced about her unforgettable professional tennis debut at the age of 14 in Oakland, California, an occasion that justified years of hype surrounding her stratospheric potential.Her first ever professional tennis match took place next door to a Rolling Stones concert.Now, 31 years later, at 45 years old, Williams is still here.Three weeks after returning to professional tennis for the first time in 16 months with a straight sets singles victory over the then world No 35 Peyton Stearns at the Citi Open in Washington, which marked her as the second-oldest woman in history to win a WTA Tour-level singles match and also silenced criticisms about her enduring presence on the tour, Williams now takes her comeback to the Cincinnati Open.Once one of the most precocious youngsters of her time, a US Open finalist by the age of 17, Williams continues to compete.
She is one of the greatest tennis players of all time in her own right, a seven-time singles grand slam champion, Olympic gold medallist and former No 1 in singles.Despite all she has achieved, her enduring love for her sport means she continues to step on the practice court every day with the aim of being the best player she can be.“Love is the key, right?” says Williams.“If you don’t love it, then get out of it.If you can, if you have that luxury, not everyone has that luxury.
For me, I think a lot of the motivation for me is just to come back and try to play in the best health that I can,“I never stopped hitting the ball, even when I was away, not as intensely as you would if you were playing tournaments, but I was still going out there,And I think that at the end of the day, you have to live your life on your own terms,Your terms should be yours,Doesn’t matter what anyone else says or what anyone else thinks, if you get to live life on your own terms of life, [do] that.
And I firmly believe in that.”This comeback, however, is not merely about striking a tennis ball.Last month, Williams revealed she has suffered with fibroids for years, non-cancerous tumours that develop in and around the uterus, which left her with excruciating symptoms including pelvic pain and heavy bleeding.In addition to the significant impact fibroids has had on Williams’ everyday life, it also affected her tennis career.She says she had been misdiagnosed for years.
Last week, in the aftermath of her returning in Washington, Williams posted a series of videos from exactly a year ago when she was undergoing an open myomectomy surgery to remove the fibroids and a large focal adenomyoma in her uterus, tissue from the lining of the uterus that had grown in her uterine wall,“I was told I was inoperable,” she wrote,“I was told I could bleed to death on the table,I was told to get a surrogate and forget the hope to carry my own children,I was misdiagnosed.
I went untreated for years and years and years.”As she has returned to the court, Williams has used the publicity around her return to shine a light on women’s medical issues.“I just remember after my surgery, I was feeling so much gratitude but I was able to have the resources to finally get through that, and I remember that was the biggest feeling that I had.And at that point, I was nowhere near playing professional tennis, but now a year later, I’m in a completely different space, and I have a clean bill of health, thank God, and I’m ready to play and compete.”The next competitive challenge for Williams will be the 22-year-old world No 51 Jéssica Bouzas Maneiro.
On the day Bouzas Maneiro was born, 24 September 2002, Williams had already won four grand slam singles titles, reached No 1 and contested the previous three consecutive major finals against her younger sister, Serena.The elder Williams sibling said the US swing was the focus for her return and she is unlikely to compete after the US Open.The rest is unknown.“I’m very much in the moment,” she said.“I don’t think you should ever rule me out.
That’s all I can say.”
Keir Starmer plays down warnings that taxes will have to be raised in autumn
Keir Starmer has sought to play down warnings that the government will be forced to raise taxes this autumn and said some of the figures being circulated “are not ones I recognise”.The prime minister was responding to forecasts from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), which projected a shortfall of up to £51bn in the public finances, given a number of factors had knocked the chancellor’s plans to stay within Whitehall spending limits, including higher debt interest payments and U-turns on welfare spending cuts.NIESR said “moderate but sustained” tax rises would be needed in the autumn budget for Rachel Reeves to overcome the deficit of £41.2bn and then restore a near £10bn buffer in the current budget or be forced to use harsh cost-cutting measures in the autumn statement.Speaking during a visit to Milton Keynes, Starmer disagreed with the economists’ warnings
Rachel Reeves needs to put up taxes to cover £40bn deficit, thinktank says
Rachel Reeves will need to raise taxes to close a government spending gap that is on course to reach more than £40bn after a slowdown in economic growth and higher-than-expected inflation, according to a leading thinktank.In a blow to Labour’s hopes of balancing the books without breaking manifesto commitments ruling out personal tax rises, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said a number of factors would knock off course the chancellor’s plans to stay within Whitehall spending limits.These factors included headwinds from Donald Trump’s tariff war, higher debt interest payments and U-turns on welfare spending cuts.NIESR said “moderate but sustained” tax rises would be needed in the autumn budget for Reeves to overcome a deficit of £41.2bn and then restore a near £10bn buffer in the current budget, forcing the Treasury to raise more than £51bn from taxes, secure extra borrowing or use severe cost-cutting measures to find extra savings
Labour thinktank offers sponsorship packages to meet and influence ‘key policymakers’
A Labour thinktank has been offering sponsorship packages where businesses can meet and influence MPs and ministers, according to a report.The Labour Infrastructure Forum (LIF) has been offering companies the chance to sponsor events at which they can meet “key policymakers” in private and “shape the discussion”, the Times said.An LIF prospectus lists a set of sponsorship packages on offer for companies, including a £7,850 deal for a “private breakfast/dinner roundtable with an influential Labour figure”.Other deals on offer include £11,750 for a “parliamentary panel event with key policymakers”, and between £21,500 and £30,000 for a “Westminster drinks reception”. The prices are not inclusive of VAT
Support for hardline anti-immigration policies linked to ignorance about migration figures, poll suggests – as it happened
YouGov has released detailed polling on attitudes to immigration that shows a clear link between having hardline anti-immigrant views and being ignorant about the level of illegal immigration into the UK.It is well known that many people massively over-estimate the extent to which irregular migration contributes to the overall net migration figures, which reached a record high of 900,000 in the year ending June 2023.The confusion is partly explained by the huge media and political attention given to people arriving illegal in the UK on small boats. But the annual small boat arrival figure has never been higher than the 46,000 total it reached in 2022 – although it is on course to pass that this year.The YouGov polling suggests that, while cutting migration numbers signifcantly but still allowing some migrants into the country is the policy with most support (very broadly, this is also what Labour and the Tories advocate), almost half of voters either strongly (26%) or somewhat (19%) support “admitting no more new migrants and requiring large numbers of migrants who came to the UK in recent years to leave”
Scottish ministers criticised for slow progress in exam passes for poorer students
Ministers in Scotland are facing intense criticism over a sluggish increase in exam passes by teenagers from deprived areas after repeated promises to greatly improve performance.Opposition parties and Scotland’s largest teaching union said progress in closing the attainment gap – the difference between exam passes for pupils from the wealthiest areas and those from the most deprived – was too slow and too patchy.In 2016, Nicola Sturgeon, then the first minister, published her government’s legislative programme with the promise that “substantially eliminating” the attainment gap by 2026 would be her government’s “defining mission”.This year’s exam results showed that the attainment gap had closed slightly year on year for pupils sitting National 5s, the Scottish equivalent to GCSEs, falling from 17.2 percentage points last year to 16
‘We’re the party of ambition’: Plaid Cymru sets out to topple Labour
It is fair to say that Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, was on safe ground at the national Eisteddfod in Wrexham this week. More than once, festivalgoers interrupted his interview with the Guardian to shake his hand or take a selfie.Ap Iorwerth has just embarked on a nationwide “listening tour” during which he will visit every Welsh constituency, beginning in Wrexham, before the Senedd elections next May.On Tuesday, the Welsh nationalist party celebrates its 100th anniversary, and ap Iorwerth believes he is on the verge of delivering the best present the party could ever ask for: ending Labour’s long reign to win power in Wales for the first time.“Wales gave Keir Starmer his big majority but I don’t think [voters] expected this barrage of bad policy, passing on the cost of the failures of successive governments to the most vulnerable,” the 52-year-old said of the UK Labour government’s refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap and attempts to cut the winter fuel payment and disability benefits
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What? They’re doing raves in the morning now? With coffee? At a cafe?