Hannah Waddingham, 50, downs a glass of wine as she enjoys a boozy day out at Wimbledon
The Ted Lasso star, 50, cooled herself down in the London heatwave by swigging a drink during the tense match.
The actress exuded glamour in a one-shoulder white dress, complemented with green mules and statement sunglasses.
The highlight in the Wimbledon calendar attracted some of the biggest names in the business, as the stars of the silver screen ensured they were on the guest list for the penultimate games in the singles competition.
It is set to be a scorcher once again with temperatures set to reach a high of 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheight) as defending champion Carlos Alcaraz takes on American Taylor Fritz for a place in the final.
Later on Centre Court, World No 1 Jannik Sinner will play seven-time winner Novak Djokovic as the two tennis stars fight to secure their own place.
Sunday could be a repeat performance of last year's final between Alcaraz and Djokovic as the two will compete in different matches today.
Last month, Hannah revealed she almost ditched her acting career entirely, when her former drama teacher mocked her appearance and knocked her confidence.
Hannah, who went to The Academy Of Live And Recorded Arts in Wandsworth where she grew up, was 19-years-old when she was told she would 'never' make it.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Hannah recalled the very cruel comments her drama teacher said about her face.
"It looks like one side of her face has had a stroke", Hannah was told.
The actress said: 'She really knocked my confidence so much that I then didn't audition for things for years on telly.
'I hope she's rotting somewhere, silly cow. People like that it's their own insecurities and I know that now.'
She also revealed she was once told she was 'too big' to appear on camera.
It is set to be a scorcher once again with temperatures set to reach a high of 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheight) as defending champion Carlos Alcaraz takes on American Taylor Fritz for a place in the final
The 5ft 11in actress claimed that she was turned away from roles due to her model stature, saying the general sentiment was 'you'll be too big on camera so stay in your lane'.
Hannah revealed that this wasn't an issue when it came to working with Jason Sudeikis, the 6ft 1in creator and star of Ted Lasso, who was happy for her to wear heels and be taller than him on screen.
However, Hannah confessed that there were several men who asked her to remove her heels when filming.
She recalled in the interview: 'I even had a couple of day players [actors on set briefly] in Ted Lasso going, "Is it all right if she doesn't wear shoes in this scene?" The heels stayed on.'
However, today London-born Hannah is world's away from receiving negative remarks about her appearance, with fans marveling over her beauty on social media.
Following her graduation, Hannah - who is the daughter of opera singer Melodie Kelly - concentrated on making it as a theatre actress.
One of her first jobs was in the interactive dinner show Joni and Gina's Wedding - where audience members take on the role of wedding guests and are invited to engage with actors.
In 2000, Hannah released the single Our Kind of Love - which was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his musical The Beautiful Game - to commemorate the composer's 50th birthday.
In 2002, she went on to appear in a production of Space Family Robinson before going on to star as Lady of the Lake in Spamalot, which earned her an Olivier Award nod.
Alongside her West End work, Hannah began auditioning for more and more TV and film roles - having made her big screen debut in 2008's How To Lose Friends and Alienate People.
In 2014, Hannah was cast as Tonya Dyke in the hit ITV series Benidorm before hitting the big-time in 2016 when she was cast as Septa Unella in the fifth season of Game of Thrones.
The role put Hannah on the Hollywood map - leading her to then be cast as Jackson's mother Sofia in the hit Netflix series Sex Education in 2019.
Two years later, Hannah's career reached all new heights when she bagged a starring role as warm-yet-icy football club owner Rebecca Welton in Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso.
Hannah's latest roles have seen her star in Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stich.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Eat, sleep or look at the roof': how top tennis players cope with match delays
The greatest challenge for Carlos Alcaraz in his third-round match at the Cincinnati Open was simply remaining sane. Before Alcaraz and Hamad Medjedovic, his opponent, took to the court, they had no choice but to wait as Francisco Comesaña and the big-serving Reilly Opelka worked through a tumultuous three-hour, three-set contest full of manic momentum shifts, medical time-outs and a last-minute rain delay for good measure. Alcaraz and Medjedovic had no idea when their match would begin, yet a large part of their job is making sure they are always ready. A few hours later, after closing out a straightforward victory, Alcaraz chuckled bitterly from a quiet hallway inside Center Court as he reflected on his hours of preparation, which turned out to be more stressful than the match itself. 'Well, it sucks,' he said, smiling. 'Having to warm up three, four times, it's horrible. A horrible thing. I thought having Opelka in front of me was going to be a little bit faster. I didn't expect a three‑hour match.' His experience was a reflection of one of the unique challenges of tennis. Aside from at the beginning of a day or session, matches usually have no fixed start time. In order to be successful, players must remain focused through this uncertainty. Karen Khachanov, the men's world No 12, says: 'We can go in all sports: NHL, American football or soccer. They know the whole season when they start – which game, against who and where. In tennis, this is the toughest part. You need to adapt to the circumstances.' The unique nature of the scoring system makes things even more challenging. A match can completely flip at any time and a player can come within a point of winning a match yet still be on court hours later. Almost every player can instantly think of an occasion when the match directly before theirs significantly frustrated them. For Iga Swiatek, her 2023 French Open semi-final against Beatriz Haddad Maia is seared in her mind by the psychodrama between Karolina Muchova and Aryna Sabalenka immediately before them. 'Aryna had 5-2 and then lost in the third set, so I was warming up like seven times, literally,' Swiatek says. 'It was a rollercoaster of emotions, from being stressed, to really not giving a damn what's going to happen in the match before, and then warming up again, being hyped up, and then being sleepy.' Being stuck behind a dramatic and seemingly endless five-set match at a grand slam tournament is even more aggravating. Madison Keys remembers a difficult situation one year at the US Open. 'I was third on, but I followed two men's matches, they both went five sets and I went on after the night session [had begun]. And it was in that moment that I decided that we should ban five sets,' she says, laughing. Jessica Pegula, the women's world No 4, concurs: 'If you're in a grand slam and you follow a three-out-of-five-set match, and they go five, you're screwed.' Every player aims to start their match with their energy high and adrenaline pumping, but that is not always possible after so many false starts. 'It's tough to wake yourself up again,' Khachanov says. 'Let's say you warmed up, you are full of adrenaline, you are ready to go on court, and then all of a sudden, there's another set. So you are thinking: 'OK, should I eat now? Should I just sleep? Should I watch the phone or I just, I don't know, look at the roof? What do I do? Play cards with my team?' Sometimes you just don't really know what to do.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion The first truly significant match of Emma Raducanu's career, during her breakout debut run at Wimbledon in 2021, showed exactly what this situation can do to a player. As an 18-year-old Raducanu and Ajla Tomljanovic waited for Alexander Zverev's five-set match against Félix Auger‑Aliassime to finish on No 1 Court, the Briton became increasingly anxious. Overwhelmed by her nerves, she took an off-court medical time‑out in the second set of her fourth‑round match because of breathing difficulties and had an apparent panic attack. She never came back. 'I had a little episode on the court,' she says. 'It was new to me as well. I had no idea what was going on. I think I had way too much coffee before that match as well. That was just an experience. I was so wired from the start of my day.' Raducanu finds it far easier to be scheduled as the first match of the day, so she does not have to worry about the start time. Not everyone agrees, Daniil Medvedev for one. The Russian says: 'I was talking to my team today. I was like: 'When I'm 35, I might just boycott the 11am matches.' I'll be like: 'I'm not coming. Walkover.' Like: 'Yeah, I didn't wake up. Sorry, guys.' In my opinion, 11 is so early. You have to wake up at 6.30 in the morning, where, if you play at night, you wake up at 9am. So it changes the perspective of the match. It's crazy mentally.' In player lounges, locker rooms and warmup areas around the world, each player copes with delayed starts in different ways. Depending on how he is feeling, Alcaraz can be found playing football, cards or napping. Andrey Rublev is always sleeping, so he relies on his coach to provide him updates on the match before. And then there is Coco Gauff, who says with a laugh: 'I'm usually just on TikTok.' Others, such as Naomi Osaka and Keys, quickly find themselves immersed in the match before them. The latter says: 'I think we're kind of all just watching the score and just being like: 'Oh, come on!' Because a lot of times, especially if you're not on a main court, you can't actually see the match, so you're just waiting and staring at the score to flip. And you're living and dying [by the live scores]. All of a sudden you're cheering for one person that you've never met … and then cheering for the other person.' There are even times when players find themselves watching a match with their next opponent. One memorable example came at the Australian Open in 2016 when Roger Federer and Grigor Dimitrov sat side by side in the warmup gym and watched Lauren Davis prolong their day by dragging Maria Sharapova into a final set. Amusingly, Federer spent much of the second set tie-break screaming at the top of his lungs due both to his anguish at his match being delayed and his enjoyment of the contest. According to Dimitrov, who laughs fondly at the memory, taking in the preceding match with his opponent used to be common on the tour. 'I think it happened often,' he says. 'Not so much any more, to be honest. Early on, the guys around my age were doing that. We're OK with it. Now it's a little bit different.' The uncertainty of the schedule can cause more serious problems, such as the ludicrous, unhealthy late finishes that have become commonplace in the sport. Andy Murray's 4.05am five-set win against Thanasi Kokkinakis at the 2023 Australian Open, for example, was simultaneously an incredible sporting achievement and a complete farce. The men's Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women's Tennis Association have since initiated a new policy regarding late matches that, among many things, rules no match should begin after 11pm unless it receives special approval. For the most part, however, this is just a unique, but annoying challenge for players to overcome, another reason why this is such a complex and interesting sport. Alcaraz says, shrugging: 'It is what it is. We have to get used to it. If I have to warm up two, three times, I'll do it just to start the match in the best possible shape.' After so many years on the tour, Keys has come to a similar conclusion: 'It's really just about trying to stay focused. It's really hard, but you just have to try to manage your energy, eat as much as you can, warm up 37 times and just [remember] it's happening to the other person, too. That's all that you can do.'
Reuters
7 hours ago
- Reuters
Swiatek downs Rybakina, faces Paolini in Cincinnati Open final
Aug 17 (Reuters) - A ruthless Iga Swiatek won 10 of the last 13 games to beat Elena Rybakina 7-5 6-3 on Sunday and reach her first Cincinnati Open final after losing in the penultimate stage of the U.S. Open tune-up event in each of the last two years. In the other semi-final, Italy's Jasmine Paolini was a 6-3 6-7(2) 6-3 winner over unseeded Russian Veronika Kudermetova. Third seed Swiatek had her hands full in the early stages of the 98-minute match but took advantage of a sudden dip in Rybakina's form to win four consecutive games and wrap up the first set before easing through the second. "That was a tough match. At the beginning the level was pretty crazy, we played so fast that sometimes we couldn't even run to the second ball because we played so fast," Swiatek said during her on-court interview. "But I was there to play with intensity and good quality and I am super happy with the performance. I served much better so for sure it helped and I wouldn't change anything." Ninth seed Rybakina used a cross-court forehand that caught the line for a break and then held for a 5-3 lead in the first set but a laser-focused Swiatek came back from the precipice and attacked the Kazakh's serve to draw level at 5-5. From there, the Wimbledon champion held serve before wrapping up the opener when she broke for a second time after a Rybakina backhand attempt came up well short. Rybakina, who enjoyed a swift victory over world number one Aryna Sabalenka in the previous round, was broken for a third time early in the second set after a backhand error put Swiatek ahead 3-1. Swiatek faced some push-back from Rybakina three games later but dug deep to recover from 15-40 down to protect her serve and reach 5-2 before wrapping it up on serve when Rybakina sent a forehand return long. Six-times Grand Slam champion Swiatek, who has not lost a set in Cincinnati, will enter the final looking to improve her head-to-head record against Paolini to 6-0 in their first match since the Bad Homburg Open semi-final in June. Paolini made a strong start but Russian Kudermetova stormed back from 5-3 down in the second to force a decider in which the Italian seventh seed went on to close it out with a love hold. "I said to myself after losing the tiebreak that I have to step back on court, be in the present and don't think about what happened," said Paolini. "I did my best and it did not work in the second set but you have to keep going. "And that was the key, to forget and go back and fight and stay in the present."
Scottish Sun
7 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
‘This is big boy stuff' – Roy Keane clashes with Micah Richards on Sky Sports but fans distracted by Daniel Sturridge
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) ROY KEANE clashed with Micah Richards following Manchester United's 1-0 defeat to Arsenal. But several fans found themselves distracted by Daniel Sturridge during the heated debate. 4 Roy Keane and Daniel Sturridge warred on Sky Sports Credit: Sky Sports 4 Daniel Sturridge looked relaxed as his colleague argued Credit: Sky Sports Keane, Richards and Sturridge made up the pundits panel for the first Super Sunday of the season. After the game, which was decided by Riccardo Calafiori's scrappy 13th minute goal, Keane and Richards disagreed over Altay Bayindir's role in the winner. Under pressure from William Saliba as Declan Rice swung in a corner, the United stopper failed to deal with the delivery, which was then prodded home by Calafiori. As Richards claimed that Bayindir had needed more protection, Keane fumed: "Micah, this is big boy stuff. READ MORE IN FOOTBALL COR-NER BLIMEY Fans spot Arsenal's sneaky new tactic to manipulate new Premier League rule "There's going to be mismatches. If they've got a lot more players bigger than you're leads, then you're going to be outmatched somewhere." As Richards continued to try and make his case, Keane snarled: "That's the goalkeeper, you can't babysit a goalkeeper." The former Manchester City star did relent a little bit, adding: "I agree with you that the goalkeeper should definitely do better. "But I also believe he should be protected a lot more." BEST ONLINE CASINOS - TOP SITES IN THE UK As the argument waged on, Sturridge sat between the two warring pundits. The former Liverpool striker looked relaxed, with on leg crossed over the other. He's taking lessons from Mikel Arteta' joke fans as Ruben Amorim makes VERY bold claim after Man Utd's loss to Arsenal At certain points, Sturridge looked like he may have even been suppressing a laugh. Noticing the ex-England star's stance, several fans joked on social media. One wrote: "Sturridge sat between those two going back and forth was killing me." While a second posted: "Sturridge in the middle of these two debating is so funny to watch! Would love be front row for that too. Roy annoyed is comedy." A third joked: "Sturridge sitting there wishing he had a big fat cigar." And another added: "Danny sturridge loves this Keane/ Richards argument." Bayindir found himself starting between the sticks, despite Andre Onana being fit again. Onana was also snubbed from the bench, with Tom Heaton preferred. Asked about the station, boss Ruben Amorim said: "We try to choose the best players for each game, so next week is a different life. "This week, we chose these players. No (he is not injured), he's recovered but the other guys did so well during pre-season, so I need to balance that." 4 Altay Bayindir had an afternoon to forget between the sticks Credit: Getty
