Emma Raducanu says late-night opener ‘makes no sense’ in swipe at Australia Open
Emma Raducanu has criticised the Australian Open’s “very difficult” scheduling but remains focused on her game after being lined up to compete in a late-night slot on the opening day.Raducanu will play her first-round match against Mananchaya Sawangkaew on Sunday night, leaving the British No 1 with minimal time to adjust to the conditions at Melbourne Park after competing in Hobart.With the Sunday start, the Australian Open’s first round is now split across three days, so Raducanu’s first match could have been played on Monday.“It’s very difficult,” she said.“You would love to have more time in the environment, more time practising, but I guess I was pretty much handed the schedule to try and turn it around and make the most out of what is in front of me.
I think it’s easy to get down and complain about it, but it’s not going to help.So I’m just trying to focus and turn it around for tomorrow.”On Thursday, Raducanu lost to the world No 204, Taylah Preston, in the quarter-finals of the Hobart International.A delayed flight meant she only arrived in Melbourne late on Friday.She will have just one training session in Melbourne before her first round match.
Coming after a best-of five-sets men’s match, Alexander Bublik against Jenson Brooksby, Raducanu’s match is due to start at a late hour against Sawangkaew, a talented 23-year-old Thai who broke into the top 100 last June.Sawangkaew is ranked No 195 owing to a six-month injury layoff.“I think it’s very difficult to be scheduling women’s matches after a potential five-set match,” said Raducanu.“To me, it doesn’t really make as much sense, but I think after seeing it, the initial reaction is probably, like: ‘Oh, it’s a late one.’ Then you deal with it, and you try and shift your day and adjust.
“Today I’m going to practise and see what it’s like.I don’t think I have been in that situation.Only once before maybe when I played the semis of the US Open.I played second night match, but other than that, I haven’t played that late.So for me, it’s a new experience, something that I need to learn to do.
Hopefully if I’m playing this game for a long time, I’ll probably be in this situation again, so it’s a good learning step to try and adjust and deal with that day, as well.”Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic cited the Professional Tennis Players’ Association’s lawsuit against the governing bodies as a significant reason behind his surprise decision to sever ties with the organisation.Djokovic, who co-founded the PTPA alongside the former player Vasek Pospisil, announced at the beginning of the year that he would be stepping away.“It was a tough call for me to exit the PTPA, but I had to do that, because I felt like my name was overused in pretty much every single article or communication channel,” he said.“I felt like people, whenever they think about PTPA, they think it’s my organisation, which is a wrong idea from the very beginning.
So this was supposed to be everyone, every player’s organisation across the board, men and women.“And I also didn’t like the way the leadership was taking the direction of the PTPA, and so I decided to step out.Does that mean that I’m not supporting PTPA? No, I am.I am still wishing them all the best, because I think that there is room and there is a need for 100% players-only representation existing in our ecosystem.“Going back to the lawsuit, as well, back in Miami, March last year, it was partly I exited because of that, because I didn’t agree with everything that was in there, and I decided not to be one of the player plaintiffs.
So that was also one of the big reasons.”
‘The dollar is losing credibility’: why central banks are scrambling for gold
Fifteen minutes after takeoff, the call came for Serbia’s central bank governor: millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars, destined for a high-security Belgrade vault, had been left on the runway of a Swiss airport.In air freight – despite the extraordinary value of bullion – fresh flowers, food and other perishables still take priority. “We learned this the hard way,” Jorgovanka Tabaković told a conference late last year.Serbia’s is among a growing number of central banks to hastily amass vast stockpiles of gold, upending decades of conventional economic logic and fuelling an increase in the gold price amid mounting geopolitical tensions. As Washington challenges the US Federal Reserve’s independence, sending jitters through financial markets, the price soared to a record $4,643 (£3,463) an ounce this week, and analysts have tipped it to break $5,000 this year
Bank of England governor hits out at populism as Trump interferes in US Fed
The governor of the Bank of England has urged the world’s leading global institutions to fight back against the rise of populism, warning that it represents one of the biggest threats to improvements in living standards.In a thinly veiled response to Donald Trump’s attempts to interfere with the independence of the US Federal Reserve, Andrew Bailey said that he and the heads of other institutions had a duty to “challenge back” populist narratives.“Part of the purpose of international agencies is that from time to time they have to tell us what we don’t want to hear, let alone act upon,” he said. “Of course, they have to be accountable for the accuracy and quality of the assessment. But, accepting that, we have to call out messenger shooting
ChatGPT to start showing ads in the US
ChatGPT will start including advertisements beside answers for US users as OpenAI seeks a new revenue stream.The ads will be tested first in ChatGPT for US users only, the company announced on Friday, after increasing speculation that the San Francisco firm would turn to a potential cashflow model on top of its current subscriptions.The ads will start in the coming weeks and will be included above or below, rather than within, answers. Mock-ups circulated by the company show the ads in a tinted box. They will be served to adult users “when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation”, according to OpenAI’s announcement
Amazon workers at Coventry warehouse tested for tuberculosis after outbreak
Amazon is testing workers at its Coventry warehouse for tuberculosis after an outbreak of the lung disease.A handful of workers from the site were found to have contagious tuberculosis (TB) last year, prompting the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to begin running a screening programme in September.Amazon said 10 people at the site, which employs about 2,000 people according to the GMB union, had since tested positive for the non-contagious, or latent, variety of TB late last year.Some people have TB in their body but do not get ill or have any symptoms – this is known as latent TB. This variant cannot be spread to others, but it can turn into active, contagious TB in the future if it is not treated
How hard can it be to run 13 miles? With help from the pub, park and peas I am finding out | Barry Glendenning
My name is Barry and I’m a runner. As a clinically obese 52-year-old Irishman who regularly binge drinks (the NHS’s joyless definition, not my own), I would love to be able to say I took up running for health reasons but that would be a lie. Truth be told, I was railroaded into it by my Football Weekly associate Max Rushden, who publicly challenged me to run the London Landmarks Half-Marathon after I had belittled the efforts of a friend who completed it by asking: “How hard can running 13 miles be?” To cut an already short story shorter, in April I hope to plod from Whitehall, past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament across Westminster Bridge, along Victoria Embankment and on to Trafalgar Square in the company of more than 20,000 fellow runners, most of whom should finish in front of me if they have so much as a modicum of shame.I will be running for Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity, not because of any particularly heartwarming or tragic link I have to this wonderful hospital, but because the bloke in charge of their fundraising heard the gauntlet being thrown down and asked me first. Presumably, that’s why he’s the boss
Kyren Wilson wards off Robertson fightback to reach Masters semis in decider
Kyren Wilson edged into the semi-finals of the Masters after fending off a Neil Robertson comeback to win 6-5.Wilson had taken a three-frame lead, hitting two century breaks along the way, and took a 4-1 advantage before Robertson fought back, winning four straight frames and recording breaks of 110 and 107 to lead 5-4.The contest reached a deciding frame after Wilson hit a 111 break to level at 5-5 and the Englishman was able to see out victory in the 11th and final frame.Earlier in the day, Wu Yize had booked his place in the semi-finals with a brilliant display of potting to thrash an underperforming Xiao Guodong 6-0.The 22-year-old got off to a flying start with breaks of 112, 93 and 60 as he raced into a clear 4-0 lead over his Chinese compatriot at the mid-session break
Partly AI-generated folk-pop hit barred from Sweden’s official charts
Prominent PR firm accused of commissioning favourable changes to Wikipedia pages
Sacked TikTok workers in UK launch legal action over ‘union busting’
TikTok to strengthen age-verification technology across EU
X still allowing users to post sexualised images generated by Grok AI tool
AI will transform the ‘human job’ and enhance skills, says science minister