Federer beats Nadal to enter Wimbledon final

Agencies
July 13, 2019

London, Jul 13: Roger Federer reached his 12th Wimbledon final on Friday, defeating old rival Rafael Nadal, 11 years after the Spaniard triumphed in their epic 2008 title showdown at the All England Club, a match widely regarded as the greatest ever played.

The 37-year-old eight-time champion won 7-6 (7/3), 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the pair's 40th career meeting to move into his 31st Grand Slam final where he will face defending champion Novak Djokovic.

Top seed and four-time winner Djokovic reached his sixth Wimbledon final, and 25th at the majors, with a nervy 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 triumph over Spain's 23rd seed Roberto Bautista Agut.

"I'm exhausted, it was tough at the end. Rafa played some unbelievable shots to stay in the match, it was a very high level," said Federer.

"The battles with Rafa are always special. The biggest points went my way, there were some tight ones in the long rallies."

Federer is the third oldest man ever to play in a Grand Slam final after 39-year-old Ken Rosewall featured in the 1974 Wimbledon and US Open finals.

However, he will have his work cut out on Sunday if he is to secure a 21st major title as he trails 15-time Slam winner Djokovic 25-22 in career meetings.

"Novak is the defending champion and he has shown that this week," added Federer.

"He has been really solid. I will try and push him to the brink but it will be difficult as it's not for nothing that he is number one.

"But I am very very excited to say the least."

Friday's semi-final was never likely to match the knife-edge theatrics of the 2008 final although Federer needed five match points to secure victory.

Federer will not mind with his win coming just a month after Nadal handed him his worst loss at a Slam in 11 years in the Roland Garros semi-finals.

In a tight 51-minute opener, Nadal managed to save the only break point in the eighth game before surrendering the advantage of an early mini-break in the tie-breaker which Federer claimed thanks to five points in a row.

The Spaniard finally carved out the first break of the semi-final in the fourth game of the second set, backing it up with a hold for 4-1.

Nadal then broke again for 5-1 as Federer suffered a sudden and severe power outage with the two-time champion comfortable levelling the contest.

Federer, the oldest semi-finalist in a Grand Slam semi-final since Jimmy Connors at the 1991 US Open, broke Nadal for the first time in the fourth game of the third set.

He then fought off three break points for a key 4-1 lead, coming out on top in a 23-shot rally and then a 25-stroke exchange.

There was no respite for Nadal, an 18-time Slam winner, who slipped a break down at 2-1 in the fourth.

Nadal saved two match points in the ninth game and two more in the 10th but a loose return sealed his fate.

Federer finished with 14 aces and 51 winners.

Djokovic, meanwhile, will be looking to add another Wimbledon title to the Australian and US Open crowns he already holds.

"This has been a remarkable tournament for me and to be in another final is a dream come true," said the top seed.

"I had to dig deep, Roberto was playing his first semi-final at a Grand Slam and he was not really overwhelmed.

"It was a really close opening four to five games of the third set that could have gone either way -- thankfully it went mine."

Djokovic swept through the first set with breaks in the second and eighth games.

It seemed certain that Djokovic was going to spend a lot less time on court in this semi-final compared to 12 months ago when he needed five sets and five hours and 15 minutes to beat Nadal.

However, Bautista Agut, who had already defeated the Serb twice this year, eventually settled and broke for 2-1 in the second set.

Djokovic fought off two break points, via a 23-shot rally, in the fifth game.

But the 31-year-old Bautista Agut held his nerve to eventually level the semi-final at 6-4 off a fortuitous net cord.

Djokovic, increasingly irritated by a restless crowd, broke for 4-2 in the third set and held for 5-2 off the back of a lung-busting 45-shot rally.

The set was secured, ironically off another net cord which fell this time in the Serb's favour.

Bautista Agut, who had planned to be in Ibiza this week for his stag party, fought off break points in the opening game of the fourth set.

But Djokovic was relentless and tightened his grip, breaking twice for a 4-1 lead, and eventually claimed victory on a fifth match point.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 13,2024

voting.jpg

Bengaluru: An estimated overall 10.14 per cent voter turnout was recorded during the first two hours, since the voting began for bypolls to three Assembly segments in Karnataka on Wednesday, election officials said.

The voting began at 7 am and will go on till 6 pm.

More than seven lakh voters are eligible to cast their votes in about 770 polling stations in Shiggaon, Sandur and Channapatna, where a total of 45 candidates are in the fray.

While Channapatna recorded 10.34 per cent voter turnout till 9 am, it was 10.08 per cent in Shiggaon, and 9.99 per cent in Sandur, election officials said.

Voters, including women and elderly were seen queuing up in front of polling booths in these segments.

By-polls for Sandur, Shiggaon, and Channapatna are necessitated, as the seats fell vacant following the election of their respective representatives -- E Tukaram of Congress, former CM Basavaraj Bommai of BJP, and Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy of JD(S) -- to Lok Sabha in May elections.

As many as 31 candidates are in the fray from Channapatna, while Sandur and Shiggaon have six and eight contenders, respectively.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made in the three segments for the smooth conduct of the polls.

The by-polls will witness a straight fight between the ruling Congress and BJP in Sandur and Shiggaon segments, while in Channapatna, JD(S) which is part of the NDA alliance is in contest against the grand old party.

Among the three segments, Channapatna is considered to be a "high profile", where the contest is between C P Yogeeshwara, a five time MLA from the segment and former Minister, who joined the Congress quitting BJP ahead of nomination, and actor-turned -politician Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who is Kumaraswamy’s son and former PM H D Deve Gowda's grandson.

BJP's Bharath Bommai, son of Basavaraj Bommai, is fighting Congress Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan, who had faced defeat against the former Chief Minister in the 2023 Assembly polls, in Shiggaon.

Bharath Bommai and his father cast their vote at a polling booth in Shiggaon segment.

In Sandur, Bellary MP Tukaram's wife E Annapurna of Congress is contesting from the seat vacated by her husband, against, BJP ST Morcha president Bangaru Hanumanthu, who is considered close to party leader and former mining barron G Janardhan Reddy.

Annapurna, Tukaram and other family members cast their votes at a booth in the segment.

With Nikhil Kumaraswamy and Bharath Bommai contesting, the third generation of Gowda and Bommai families are in the fray in this by-poll. Both their fathers and grandfathers have served as Karnataka's Chief Ministers in the past.

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News Network
November 21,2024

palestainetragedy.jpg

Hamas says the Israeli regime’s sole objective lies in “erasing” the entirety of the Palestinian population from across the Palestinian territories.

Khalil al-Hayya, a ranking official with the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement, made the remarks to the Palestinian al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday.

“The occupation targets everyone—it strikes hospitals, civil defense, women, children, and the elderly,” he said, adding that the regime sought to “empty Gaza of its residents, and displace the Palestinian people to fulfill its dreams of building a Zionist Jewish state across all of Palestine.”

The remarks came amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the coastal sliver that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 44,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

“This unprecedented aggression in modern times evokes scenes from the dark ages of human history, having crossed all red lines and exceeded every expectation of brutality in the modern era,” the Palestinian official lamented.

He also regretted that the regime had added “systematic and dangerous starvation to its aggression, falsely claiming before the world that it allows 250 [aid] trucks into Gaza daily. In reality, the number of trucks is far fewer.”

Hayya, meanwhile, regretted that “scenes of children torn apart, women screaming over their children, and heart-wrenching destruction have failed to stir enough humanity to stop these crimes.”

He decried the United States for vetoing the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions that are aimed at bringing about a potential ceasefire in the war, saying this indicated Washington’s “partnership in the aggression” and a simultaneous siege that the Israeli regime has been enforcing on Gaza.

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official asserted that, despite what the Israeli official is after, Hamas would not hand over the regime’s captives “without [the regime’s] stopping the war.”

He called Netanyahu “the main obstacle” in the way of cessation of the aggression, saying the Israeli premier “blocks any progress for political reasons,” and citing his preventing conclusion of a ceasefire agreement in July.

Hayya also warned that the regime sought to expand the war beyond Gaza, but asserted that its goals are “impossible and will never happen.”

“Today, the enemy exposes its true intentions of extermination and displacement, but it will fail,” he stressed.

“The Palestinian people are resilient and will not surrender, as they believe in their humanitarian and political cause. The enemy and its allies will not succeed in achieving their goals. This steadfast people will endure, and the occupation will not prevail against them.”

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