Your Guardian Sport weekend: French Open finals, football, cricket and much more
Join Emillia Hawkins and Barry Glendenning with all the breaking news as we build towards Saturday afternoon’s England men’s World Cup qualifier against Andorra at 5pm (all times BST).The match is being staged at Espanyol’s 40,000-capacity RCDE Stadium in Barcelona.since Andorra’s national stadium is unavailable after hosting the Games of the Small States of Europe.The last time the Three Lions visited Andorra in October 2021, they won 5-0.Over-by-over coverage gets under way before the first ball of the day at Taunton is due at 1pm.
Tanya Aldred and James Wallace are at the helm for what should be another run-fest for the hosts.England have outclassed West Indies across the 20-over and 50-over formats so far, hammering them by 143 runs in the second one-day international in Leicester.That came hot on the heels of a bruising 108-run win for England in the first ODI at Derby.Stars of both those shows were the openers Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont, who both hit their second successive centuries.Raf Nicholson reports from the County Ground.
Tony Paley helms our live blog and Greg Wood reports from Epsom in the build up to the Flat season’s highlight.Aidan O’Brien’s No 1 runner Delacroix has solid claims in the Derby, but he perhaps lacks the “wow” factor of many of his other winners.The Lion In Winter must overcome being drawn in stall 19 but it would be no surprise to see him bounce back given O’Brien’s recent exploits with City Of Troy and Auguste Rodin.Also making a strong case in the 19-strong field are Guineas winner Ruling Court and Dante victor Pride Of Arras.World No 1 meets world No 2 at Roland Garros as top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka takes on Coco Gauff, the French Open runner-up in 2022.
A three-time grand slam champion on hard courts, Sabalenka makes her first final on the red dirt of Paris and John Brewin helms our live blog while Tumaini Carayol reports from the City of Lights,Aaron Bower is at Wembley for the game’s annual migration south as Sam Burgess seeks his first trophy as a head coach with Warrington,Standing in the Wolves’ way are Super League leaders Hull KR,Willie Peters’ side are aiming for a first Challenge Cup triumph in almost half a century,As a prelude to the big game, traditional powerhouses St Helens and Wigan face off in the women’s final.
Tom Bassam is your minute-by-minute guide and Michael Aylwin our match reporter as Tigers face Sharks in their Premiership semi-final.It’s Michael Cheika’s chance to edge closer to winning the Premiership title in his one-off season at Welford Road on his home-ground farewell.The game promises to be a cracker if their exchanges in the regular season are a reliable measure – Leicester have shared 142 points across two league games with Sale already.Thomas Tuchel’s Three Lions take on underwhelming opposition as the new head coach builds towards the finals in North America, this qualifier coming three days before meeting Senegal in a friendly in Nottingham.Making all the headlines in the buildup was the recall of Ivan Toney, back for the first time since he left Brentford for the Saudi Premier League club Al-Ahli last summer.
The 29-year-old has scored 29 goals in 43 games this season and won the Asian Champions League,Clearly it’s the moment for him to impress the German,Rob Smyth follows the action while David Hytner and Jonathan Wilson report from Barcelona,Who will be the king of clay at Roland Garros? Tumaini Carayol reports from Paris and Daniel Harris your live host,Following Friday’s T20 series opener in Durham, the action moves to Bristol on Sunday afternoon before the third match at Southampton on Tuesday.
After brushing West Indies aside 3-0 in the ODI series, England will be eager to maintain their upswing under new white-ball captain Harry Brook.Opener Jamie Smith has certainly been making an impression under England’s new leadership, his 64 from 28 balls in the final match of the one-day whitewash over the tourists a positive sign of things to come.Daniel Gallan helms our over-by-over coverage and Taha Hashim reports.A clash of old Iberian rivals in Sunday night’s final in Munich – a showdown that pits a young pretender against the old king.The 17-year-old Lamine Yamal, the undoubted rising star of Spanish football, meets the 40-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo – and both players will want to lay down markers for the World Cup.
Lamal scored twice in a nine-goal thriller of a semi-final defeat of France, a match that featured the last two Nations League champions: France in 2021 and Spain two years ago,Spain are targeting a third Uefa tournament success in a row – having won the last Nations League and Euro 2024,Ronaldo scored his 137th international goal for Portugal – who won the first tournament in 2019 –as they battled from a goal down to beat Germany 2-1 in Munich,Join Dominic Booth for our minute-by-minute coverage while Sid Lowe reports,
Amazon promises fake reviews crackdown after investigation by UK watchdog
Amazon has promised to do a better job policing fake reviews and to crack down on sellers using them to boost product ratings after an investigation by the UK competition watchdog.Ending the scourge of fake reviews is a priority for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) due to the influence they have over consumers.About 90% of UK shoppers rely on reviews, with an estimated £23bn a year of spending influenced by crowd-sourced information. Since April, fake reviews have been explicitly banned.Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, said the undertakings secured from Amazon meant shoppers could now “make decisions with greater confidence”
23andMe back on the auction block after former CEO makes 11th-hour bid
The DNA testing company 23andMe is back up for sale, throwing a purchase agreement reached last month into chaos, court filings show.The board of directors of 23andMe, which filed for bankruptcy in March, had agreed to sell the company and its assets to the pharmaceutical firm Regeneron for $256m after conducting an auction in April. However, the founder and former CEO of the genetics company, Anne Wojcicki, put in a $305m bid through a newly formed non-profit, TTAM Research Institute, after the auction ended and pushed the bankruptcy court to reopen the sale process. She tried to buy the company multiple times during its long decline and bankruptcy but was rejected by the board.TTAM’s offer of $305m will serve as a starting price for the secondary sale process, and Regeneron will be permitted to submit a competing bid that is at least $10m more
UK sales of new Tesla cars slump by more than a third amid Musk backlash
Sales of new Tesla cars slumped by more than a third in the UK last month as the electric carmaker lost ground to China’s BYD and other rivals, amid a political backlash against its billionaire boss, Elon Musk.Tesla sold 2,016 vehicles in the UK in May, down from 3,152 in May 2024 – a 36% drop, according to the monthly snapshot from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).The Chinese carmaker BYD’s sales in the UK jumped by 407%, from 596 in May last year to 3,025 last month. It sells hybrids as well as pure electric cars. BYD first overtook Tesla in January
Amazon ‘testing humanoid robots to deliver packages’
Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and “spring out” of its vans.The $2tn (£1.47tn) technology company is building a “humanoid park” in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project.The Information reported that the robots could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers. It is developing the artificial intelligence software that would power the robots but will use hardware developed by other companies
English-speaking countries more nervous about rise of AI, polls suggest
People in English-speaking countries including the UK, US, Australia and Canada are more nervous about the rise of artificial intelligence than those in the largest EU economies, where excitement over its spread is higher, new research suggests.A global split over what has been dubbed “the wonder and worry” of AI appears to correlate with widely divergent levels of trust in governments to regulate the fast-developing technology.The polling of 23,000 adults in 30 countries, shared exclusively with the Guardian by Ipsos Mori, also showed a quarter of people globally still do not have a good understanding of what AI is, despite it being widely described as the most transformative technology in decades.On Wednesday, Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus revealed he was writing a musical with the assistance of AI, describing it as “like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame”.Britons appear to be among the world’s most worried people about the rise of AI, with two-thirds of people in Great Britain saying they are nervous about the technology being deployed in products and services, and less than half trusting the UK government to regulate AI responsibly
Trump family disown debut of crypto wallet: ‘I know nothing about this project!’
A splashy website featuring an illustration of Donald Trump, looking buff and pumping his fist in the air, appeared online on Tuesday. The image is the logo of one of Trump’s digital currencies, and the website claims to be the “Official $Trump Wallet”, hawking a product that would allow customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, primarily the president’s own.The website prominently features the name of Trump’s coin, $Trump, and invites people to join the waitlist to use the digital wallet. It was first noticed by the crypto newsletter Citation Needed. Magic Eden, an established cryptocurrency marketplace, said on the website that it had partnered with Trump’s official digital coin team to create the wallet
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