Frustrated Raducanu held up by rain with match suspended overnight in Hobart
Emma Raducanu cut a frustrated figure on Tuesday at the Hobart International as her first round match was suspended for the night due to rain with the Briton struggling to hold on to her precarious 6-3, 2-4 lead against Camila Osorio of Colombia.Raducanu, the top seed in Hobart, will return to the court on Wednesday afternoon hoping to close out her first win of the season.She lost her only match of 2026 to Maria Sakkari at the United Cup mixed-team competition last week.Afterwards, Raducanu explained how her pre-season had been badly disrupted by the foot injury she had been struggling with since she prematurely ended her 2025 season in October.The 22-year-old only began to play points and move properly in her training sessions once she arrived in Australia at the end of December.
With a week of training behind her, Raducanu had hoped to improve in Hobart but the 23-year-old was still too tentative at times to swiftly close out an opponent ranked 60 places beneath her at No 89.Raducanu had started the match quite positively.Although the first set was tight, she played with greater freedom in the decisive moments, confidently dictating with her forehand and overpowering the diminutive Osorio.Osorio was clearly under the weather on Tuesday and the match was soundtracked by the Colombian’s constant coughing fits, but the 24-year-old is a talented player and she raised her level significantly at the beginning of set two.Osorio forced herself into offensive positions inside the baseline, taking the ball earlier and injecting pace into her own forehand.
As the her opponent’s intensity and ball speed increased, Raducanu remained flat and passive, her length decreasing as she quickly fell down a double break to trail 1-4.The Briton retrieved one of the service breaks between one of their numerous rain delays before sustained, heavy rainfall left the organisers with no choice but to suspend the match until Wednesday.Earlier, Venus Williams’s second appearance of the Australian swing proved to be far less positive than her first as she suffered a 6-4, 6-3 loss to Tatjana Maria in Hobart.After seemingly ruling out the possibility of competing in Australia at the US Open last year, Williams surprised many by embarking on her first trip to Australia since 2021.She performed well last week in a tight three-set first round loss to Magda Linette in Auckland, New Zealand, but here Williams’s unforced error count was out of control against a cunning veteran in Maria, who slices the vast majority of both forehands and backhands, constantly forcing the American to generate her own pace.
With Williams 45 years old and Maria 38, this match was also notable due to the two players boasting a combined age of 83.A finalist in 2003, Williams will head to Melbourne for her 22nd appearance at the Australian Open.Elsewhere, Lorenzo Musetti took the unusual step of retiring from an exhibition match while sparring with Alexander Zverev at the Australian Open.The Italian cited a lower back problem, sparking injury concerns for one of the highest-ranked young players before the first grand slam of the year.Musetti broke into the top five for the first time in his career at the weekend after reaching the final of the Hong Kong Open, which he lost to Alexander Bublik.
JP Morgan boss says Trump attacks on Federal Reserve could push up inflation
The boss of JP Morgan, the largest US bank, has said Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, are putting central bank independence at risk and could backfire and ultimately push up interest rates and inflation.Jamie Dimon told reporters on Tuesday he had “enormous respect” for the Fed chair, who on Friday became the target of a controversial criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over alleged “abuse of taxpayer dollars”.Powell has denounced the investigation, linked to a $2.5bn (£1.9bn) renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington DC, claiming it is punishment for not setting interest rates in line with the US president’s wishes
Trump claims victory on US economy despite many Americans’ cost of living concerns
Donald Trump claimed victory on the economy after 12 months back in office on Tuesday, declaring it to be the “greatest first year in history” as many Americans express alarm over the cost of living.In a stream-of-consciousness speech at the Detroit Economic Club, the US president delivered his gold-tinted view of how the economy has fared on his watch. Prices were down, he claimed, despite official data showing otherwise, and productivity was “smashing expectations”.Even as he touted achievements during the first year of his second term, Trump has started to acknowledge concerns over affordability across the US, with November’s midterm elections creeping closer. The White House has moved to roll out a series of policy proposals in recent days that aspire to address affordability
Trump says Microsoft will pay more for its datacenters’ electricity
Donald Trump said he is partnering with tech companies to ensure the large energy-hungry datacenters vital for AI do not drive up electricity bills in the US. On Tuesday, the US president announced that Microsoft was “first up”.“We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI. Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way.’” Trump wrote on Truth Social
It’s the governance of AI that matters, not its ‘personhood’ | Letters
Prof Virginia Dignum is right (Letters, 6 January): consciousness is neither necessary nor relevant for legal status. Corporations have rights without minds. The 2016 EU parliament resolution on “electronic personhood” for autonomous robots made exactly this point – liability, not sentience, was the proposed threshold.The question isn’t whether AI systems “want” to live. It’s what governance infrastructure we build for systems that will increasingly act as autonomous economic agents – entering contracts, controlling resources, causing harm
John Higgins and Kyren Wilson win at Masters as curious run of 6-2 scorelines goes on
Kyren Wilson, the 2024 world champion, defeated Si Jiahui in impressive fashion to reach the Masters quarter-finals with the 6-2 result continuing a curious statistic: every match at Alexandra Palace this week had finished with the same scoreline. That record extended in the evening session as John Higgins saw off Barry Hawkins, 6-2, to reach the last eight.After edging the first frame following a run of snookers, Wilson – yet to win a tournament this season having broken his cue at the start of the campaign – looked set to build a maximum in the next, but just missed the 11th red into the bottom corner pocket as he moved 2-0 ahead.Si got on the board with a well-crafted break of 97 before the world No 2, who lost to Shaun Murphy in last year’s Masters final, dug in to re-establish his lead at 3-1 heading into the mid-session interval.Although Si pulled another one back by taking a close fifth frame, Wilson, looking to move on from a disappointing first-round exit to Elliot Slessor at the UK Championship, then took the sixth 82-28 before closing out an impressive victory with successive century breaks of 101 and 105
Shiffrin extends slalom stranglehold as Moltzan seals US one-two in Flachau
Mikaela Shiffrin completed another dominant night in Flachau, Austria, on Tuesday, winning a World Cup slalom to extend her season-long stranglehold on the discipline while leading an American one-two finish with teammate Paula Moltzan.Shiffrin followed up her fastest opening run with a composed second run to finish 0.41sec clear of Moltzan, claiming her sixth victory in seven slalom races this season. It was also Shiffrin’s record-extending 107th career World Cup win, her 70th in slalom and her sixth slalom victory on the demanding Flachau course.Moltzan, who was chasing her first career World Cup win, delivered a strong second run to secure second place, marking another podium in a season that has seen her establish herself among the world’s most consistent technical skiers
UK politics: Tories call for block on Chinese super-embassy amid claims of hidden chamber near sensitive cables – as it happened
Wes breaks cover to challenge Keir – without even mentioning him | John Crace
End of western alliance means UK must be bolder, says Chatham House director
New proposed Ukip logo compared to iron cross used by Nazi regime
UK announces ‘full and further sanctions’ amid Iran killings and arrests
Home Office TikTok account posting deportation footage accused of turning ‘brutality into clickbait’