Alcaraz bludgeons Paul to reach French Open semis, Swiatek to face Sabalenka
Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - June 3, 2025 Italy's Lorenzo Musetti in action during his quarter final match against Frances Tiafoe of the U.S. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - June 3, 2025 Italy's Lorenzo Musetti celebrates during his quarter final match against Frances Tiafoe of the U.S. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
PARIS - Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz steamrolled past American 12th-seed Tommy Paul 6-0 6-1 6-4 at the French Open on Tuesday with a jaw-dropping display of attacking tennis in one of the most one-sided men's quarter-finals in Paris in recent memory.
Four-time champion Iga Swiatek, who is looking to become the first woman in the professional era to win four consecutive titles in Paris, also punched her semi-final ticket with a straight sets win over Elina Svitolina of Ukraine to set up a mouth-watering semi-final with world number one Aryna Sabalenka.
But it was four-time Grand Slam champion Alcaraz's merciless dismantling of Paul that grabbed the fans' attention, with the 22-year-old Spaniard terrorising the former French Open junior champion who looked like a fish out of water.
Alcaraz charged through the first two sets in just 53 minutes and in near flawless fashion, hitting winners at will and chasing down every ball before the shell-shocked American had any time to react.
Paul pulled himself together to hold serve and go 4-3 up in the third but as the sun gradually went down over Paris so did the curtain on his inspired run, with Alcaraz winning three games in a row to put him out of his misery in just 94 minutes.
"I could close my eyes and everything went in," Alcaraz said. "My feeling was unbelievable. I tried to hit the shots 100% and not think about it."
"Today it was one of those matches where everything went in," he said.
He will next take on in-form Italian Lorenzo Musetti who battled past American Frances Tiafoe in four sets after surviving a second-set wobble, to reach the French Open semi-finals for the first time.
MUSETTI WARNING
Musetti, the world number seven, who escaped with a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct when he kicked a ball at a line judge, eventually overran 15th seed Tiafoe.
"Honestly it was really unlucky coincidence," said Musetti of the incident.
"I was a little bit scared, because I really didn't want to harm nobody, of course. So I immediately went to the line umpire, and I of course said, 'sorry', I apologise to everyone."
"It was right to have a warning, but I think the umpire saw that there was no intention about that, and that's why probably just, you know, let me continue my game."
That occurred in the second set when Musetti, the only man to reach at least the semi-finals of every main claycourt event this season, was given balls to serve.
He kicked one to inadvertently hit the line judge, who barely flinched even though she was hit on her upper body.
Grand Slam rules state that players are issued a warning at first instance for any ball abuse. Tiafoe, however, called it 'comical' that there was no serious punishment.
"I mean, obviously he did that and nothing happened," said Tiafoe, who had looked surprised and pointed out the incident to the chair umpire.
"I think that's comical, but it is what it is. Nothing happened, so there's nothing really to talk about. Obviously it's not consistent, so it is what it is."
Earlier, and in front of a sparse crowd around lunchtime, Swiatek braved the windy conditions to beat Svitolina 6-1 7-5.
Although Swiatek failed to win a title going into the tournament this season, she looks to have rediscovered her remarkable claycourt form in Paris, stretching her winning run at the French Open to 26 consecutive matches following her title three-peat between 2022-24 to add to her 2020 crown.
Three-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka, hunting her first French Open crown, also needed just two sets to overcome Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen and snap her opponent's 10-match winning streak at Roland Garros with a 7-6(3) 6-3 victory.
"I think we're all here for one reason," Sabalenka said. "Everyone wants that beautiful trophy. I'm glad I have another opportunity, another semi-final to do better than last time."
"I really hope that by the end of the claycourt season I'm really proud of myself." REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
31 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Indian cities keen to develop riverfronts but cleaning polluted rivers lags
While riverfront projects have given residents a public space, a key challenge cities face are the polluted rivers. PHOTO: REUTERS NEW DELHI – As Indian cities roll out plans to build attractive riverfront s , the improvements on land are outpacing attempts to clean up the waters of the polluted rivers below them . In the western state of Gujarat, a plan to extend the riverfront from the existing 11 .25 km in Ahmedabad city along the Sabarmati R iver to 38km includes the development of a 17.5km stretch by Singapore firm Surbana Jurong (SJ). The urban planning and design specialist is creating the masterplan for the last phases of the development, covering 591ha of land. The first phase was completed in 2012 but other earlier phases are in different stages of development by other companies. 'When completed, it will be the longest riverfront project in the world, with a total length of over 38km,' said Mr Abhishek Malhotra , SJ's regional director, South Asia. While the riverfront projects have given residents a much-needed public space, a key challenge for Ahmedabad and other cities with riverfront plans, however, are the extremely polluted rivers, which are clogged with sewage, toxic chemicals discharged by factories, and rubbish from rapidly growing cities. On the 371km-long Sabarmati R iver, which flows from the north-western state of Rajasthan into Gujarat, multiple cleaning operations have taken place but with limited success, said environmentalists. In the latest initiative to clean up the river, some 60,000 residents of Ahmedabad have since May 15 picked up 945 tonnes of waste from the riverbed after water was drained to repair the Vasn a B arrage, which controls the flow of water into the Sabarmati River near the riverfront. This is among other initiatives both short term and long term to clean the river – from using trash skimmers to collect floating rubbish to tackling the problem of untreated sewage. However, the pollutants coming into the river have continued to outpace clean-up efforts, noted environmentalists. 'The cleanliness drive is also to ensure wider awareness so that people don't throw waste into the river. We want river waters to be clean,' said Ahmedabad municipal commissioner Banchhanidhi Pani. A boy looks for recyclables as he walks on the banks of Yamuna river in New Delhi on April 11. PHOTO: AFP But it is not just the discarded rubbish that is the problem. A report released recently by Toxics Link, an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation, said high levels of nonylphenol – a chemical with carcinogenic properties that can cause prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women – were detected on the surface water of four rivers including the Sabarmati, downstream of the riverfront project . The chemical, which also kills aquatic life , is used in the textile industry in particular. The report found the highest concentration of the chemical in Cooum River in Tamil Nadu. 'It is not enough to keep the riverfront water clean and not the rest of the stretch,' said Mr Mahesh Pandya, director of Paryavaran Mitra, a Gujarat-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to protecting the environme nt. In September 2024 , the Gujarat High Court rebuked the local authorities for failing to come up with a concrete plan for cleaning up the river. The court initiated a Public Interest Litigation on its own and has kept a close scrutiny of the clean-up efforts. 'All your claims are on paper,' the court noted, according to a report in Gujarat Samachar newspaper. Untreated sewage flowing into the river is a common problem in India' s polluted rivers. According to some estimates, 38,000 million litres of waste water enter Indian rivers due to the lack of functioning sewage treatment plants and poor waste disposal. Many riverfront projects in the pipeline Polluted rivers present a jarring challenge to local governments' plans to spruce up riverfronts and turn them into attractive urban community spaces. A report by the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) said 61 riverfront projects have been initiated under the Smart Cities Mission, an urban renewal and retrofitting programme by the government to improve facilities and infrastructure in Indian cities. Many more are being developed outside the mission as well. Along the Sabarmati, the first 11.25km of the riverfront development, completed in 2012, has been held up as an exemplary instance of riverfront development in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 , hosted world leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 and late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2017 on the riverfront. SJ, which has joined further development of the riverfront, aims to foster 'a vibrant and engaging urban-river interface', said Mr Malhotra. He said the masterplan 'embraces the natural slope of the riverbanks to create a convenient transition from the street level to the lower terrace, enhancing the connection between riverfront and the surrounding urban fabric'. The firm would be using a 'blend of design strategies – from landscaped stepped terraces to natural, soft edges', he added, allowing 'inclusive public access for people of all abilities'. In addition, the Gujarat government is proposing to build a Singapore-style Cloud Forest – a greenhouse-like structure featuring exotic trees and plants under a dome – covering an area of over 2,500 sq m, which is smaller than a football field. The trend to develop riverfronts in India is part of a larger push to boost urban infrastructure and make cities liveable. A study on waterfront development projects by the SPA, a public higher education institution, noted that waterfront development projects were significant as cities were 'grappling with multiple issues of pollution, biodiversity loss and extreme pressure on open spaces'. Thousands perform yoga together on the Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad, India on World Yoga Day, on June 21. PHOTO: REUTERS It added that these developments lead to 'an increase in available and usable open spaces, re-establishing the lost connection between the people and the waterbody, an increase in livelihood options and property prices'. The SPA study noted that the development of the Ganga riverfront in the eastern city of Patna in Bihar state had led to significantly enhanced recreational facilities, improved public transport connectivity, and addressed waste management issues. It further noted that anecdotal evidence suggested potential increase in property values and economic activity. In 2022, the Central Pollution Control Board identified 311 polluted river stretches, calculated through levels of biochemical oxygen demand, an important indicator of water quality, on 279 rivers. Clean up rivers before developing riverfronts In some cities, residents are putting pressure on the authorities to pay as much attention to environmental concerns as developing the riverfront. Angry citizens of Pune, a city in the western state of Maharashtra, have staged protest marches, filed lawsuits, and planted trees to demand that the Mula R iver be cleaned up and that riverfront developments take environmental concerns into account. A concrete heavy riverside development would affect the natural aqueducts that charge the groundwater and the biodiversity along the river, said Pune-based environmentalist Mukund Mavalankar. 'We have pointed out that the river is dying because of untreated sewage going into the river. This needs to be tackled first,' said Mr Mavalankar. The capacity of sewage treatment plants along the Mula River is 500 million litres per day, when the required capacity is 1,000 million lit res, he added. While the protests and legal cases have not stalled plans as yet, they have brought focus on the issue of rejuvenating rivers and ensuring that wanton construction does not take place along their banks. A key problem has also been the lack of a holistic approach to clean rivers that flow through multiple states, water experts noted, arguing that piecemeal efforts are often unsuccessful despite the best intentions. Ms Jaya Dhindaw, the executive programme director of Sustainable Cities at WRI India, an independent research organisation, said important initiatives and institutional mechanisms have been set up by the government like the National Mission for Clean Ganga to clean the river Ganga and the surrounding areas. The Ganga is a 2,525km-long river that crosses multiple states in India before flowing into Bangladesh. But she noted: 'There still remains a lot to be done in terms of addressing issues such as checking and stopping source pollution, integrating ecosystem preservation and restoration, and ensuring financial and institutional wherewithal for maintenance of clean-ups.' 'A data-led approach which helps identify the sources of pollution, strong enforcement of pollution control, integrating nature-based solutions to manage water quality and enabling community ownership and stewardship of rivers are essential to the long-term success of clean-up efforts,' she added. Test case in Delhi A test case for whether river rejuvenation can happen with riverfront development is in the capital city. The Delhi government, which like Gujarat's is led by Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, has promised a Sabarmati type riverfront makeover along the Yamuna R iver. Plans include creating a central piazza, topiary park, shopping centre and river promenade along a 22km stretch of the river. The Yamuna flows through multiple states, with the stretch in Delhi among its most polluted. Between 2017 and 2022, the Delhi government spent more than 68 billion rupees (S$1 billion) to clean the Yamuna, but it still has high levels of pollutants from untreated sewage and industrial waste. The Delhi government recently announced a 30-point action plan to clean the river which includes building 40 sewage treatment plants. For residents, a riverfront to go to for a stroll or a cruise down the river is an attractive proposition. 'It would be great to have a riverfront,' said Ms Rit u Sharma, a Delhi resident, who added that she would love to take a walk along the riverfront. 'But I hope they can clean the pollution too.' Nirmala Ganapathy is India bureau chief at The Straits Times. She is based in New Delhi and writes about India's foreign policy and politics. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody unveils art show in New York
Adrien Brody and his mother Sylvia Plachy at his solo exhibition at Eden Gallery in New York, on May 31. PHOTO: SAM HELLMANN/NYTIMES NEW YORK – 'I'm a little in a daze,' actor Adrien Brody said recently, the skin around his eyes slightly crinkled, but his gaze soft and present. He had been up since 5am and had spent most of his day crouched on the ground at Eden Gallery in Manhattan, putting the finishing touches on his collages ahead of the next evening's opening of his latest solo exhibition, Made In America. The floors and walls were covered with canvases, themselves covered with old newspaper advertisements, erratic splashes of graffiti and darkly rendered cartoon characters. Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe were in attendance. As were the Hamburglar and a toy soldier. In a nearby corner was a gum wall, soon to be covered in wads of chewing gum straight from the mouths of attendees in an interactive 'expression of rebellion and decay', according to the wall text. Adrien Brody, the Oscar-winning actor, is also Adrien Brody, the impassioned painter, is also Adrien Brody, the beats-mixing sound artiste. Those mediums converge in a collection of more than 30 works. Accompanied by Brody's soundscapes, the show features large mixed-media art in what he calls an autobiographical display of the gritty New York of his youth, and the culture of violence and intolerance today. It is an approach that has been met with some derision both in the art press and on social media. Made In America, on view until June 28, also includes photographs of and by his mother, acclaimed Hungarian-American photographer Sylvia Plachy – a role model for Brody, who was never formally trained in visual art. A gum wall by Adrien Brody for his art exhibition, Made In America. PHOTO: SAM HELLMANN/NYTIMES It has been nearly a decade since Brody, 52, last showed his work publicly, at Art Basel Miami. So, why now? 'I'm an unemployed actor at the moment,' he said with a half smile. Though it is difficult to picture Brody as unemployed, especially when his artworks sell for six figures, this is not untrue. The last film Brody shot was in 2023 – The Brutalist, for which he won the best actor Oscar in 2025 – and nothing definite is lined up next. 'I know that if I don't do it now, I won't do it for another long period of time,' he said of the show. 'It's kind of time to let it go.' Adrien Brody's solo exhibition Made In America at New York's Eden Gallery is his first art exhibition in nearly a decade. PHOTO: SAM HELLMANN/NYTIMES Brody had been steadily working on his collages for the past decade. In the fallow periods, years-long stretches when he was not landing the acting roles he yearned for, he turned inwards and painted. The method in all of his mediums, he said, is a combination of layering – be it the incorporation of studied hand mannerisms for his character in The Pianist (2002) or the added thumps for a recorded track – and peeling back, such as using chemicals to degrade paint for a visual work. Brody, who credits his mother as his greatest artistic inspiration, grew up accompanying Plachy on photo expeditions as she chronicled the city's beauty and chaos on assignments for The Village Voice, where she worked for 30 years. 'He came along and he saw the world,' said Plachy, 82. In her darkroom, set up in their home attic in Queens, they would talk to each other through the curtain while she developed her photographs, moving the images from tray to tray, swirling them around in Dektol. 'He still associates me with those bad chemicals,' she said, laughing. Adrien Brody and his mother Sylvia Plachy at the gallery. PHOTO: SAM HELLMANN/NYTIMES His father, Elliot Brody, was also a painter, but focused on his career as a teacher. It was onto Plachy's discarded photo prints that Brody began painting as a child. As a teenager, Brody attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts for drama, after being rejected for visual arts. 'It was a good thing, obviously,' he said. 'I'd definitely be a starving artist, most likely, if I didn't have an acting career. So, it's funny ho w that happened.' In Made In America, many works feature a cartoon character – Lisa Simpson or Yosemite Sam or Bugs Bunny – brandishing a weapon. It is a depiction of the violence Brody said he grew up with culturally: an American diet of toy guns, video games an d McDonald's. In Brody's vermin series, oversized black-and-white images of rats appear to pixelate behind street art tags. People are 'either grossed out by them or they are antagonistic towards them', Brody said of the scores of rats in New York City. 'And I always felt like, 'Why doesn't anybody see what they're going through?' Weirdly, I really kind of feel for them.' Rats feature in Adrien Brody's artworks. PHOTO: SAM HELLMANN/NYTIMES That compassion, he said, comes from his mother. Plachy's sensitivity towards animals rubbed off on him. So much so that he has had a pet rat – twice. The first he bought as a child and then gifted to a friend. The second, a few years ago, belonged to the daughter of his girlfriend, designer-actress Georgina Chapman. 'They're forced to kind of hide and scurry about and forage for themselves ,' he said. 'And people are nasty to them and that always bothered me.' That message, though, appears to be muddied in its reception. 'Brody is trying to do something with mice and rats, but there's no attempt to marshal this imagery towards contemporary critique,' professor of art history Claire Bishop at the CUNY Graduate Center said in an e-mail, calling his collages 'too pretty and too even' and 'lacking bite'. 'To say they look like AI-generated images resulting from search terms '19 90s LES graffiti', ' Americana' and 'Disney nostalgia' would be too generous,' she added . 'What they actually resemble is the kind of sanitised street art that's sold on 53rd Street outside MoMA or on the sidewalk in SoHo – work aimed at tourists seeking an arty yet unchallenging New York souvenir.' And viewers on social media have not taken too kindly to Brody's painterly side. In May , one of his creations, a blue-eyeshadowed Marilyn Monroe, the Hollywood sign poking out behind a puff of her blonde hair, sold at the amfAR Gala Cannes for US$425,000 (S$546,600) . The painting became a source of mockery online, and drew criticism for being derivative. Adrien Brody preparing for his art show at the gallery Gallery. PHOTO: SAM HELLMANN/NYTIMES But Brody has his defenders. 'He's real,' said Eden Gallery's chief executive Guy Klimovsky. 'He is himself.' 'Yes, people will come because it's him,' he added, 'but they will forget. Because when I see an artwork, without knowing who made it, the artworks are rich. They're interesting. They have a story connection to the US, the story of the US, to the icon of the US.' It is all part of being an artist, his mother said. 'I think when you stick your neck out into the world, you'll have good and bad comments and that's the risk of it,' Plachy said. Sitting outside the gallery the day before the opening, Brody looked down at his hands, covered in acrylic paint. 'It's a lot of pressure to reveal this,' he said. 'I've literally been hiding the works.' 'Hiding maybe isn't the right word,' he added, 'but working quietly for a very long time and not showing, intentionally, to kind of develop this and do it at my pace. And so this is kind of ripping a Band-Aid off.' NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
3 hours ago
- Straits Times
Donnarumma says Italy's form unacceptable after drubbing by Norway
Soccer Football - World Cup - European Qualifiers - Group I - Norway v Italy - Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo, Norway - June 6, 2025 Norway's Sander Berge hits the post as Italy's Gianluigi Donnarumma looks on Lise Aserud/NTB via REUTERS Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma offered no excuses for his side's poor showing in their 3-0 defeat at Norway in the World Cup qualifiers on Friday, saying their form was not acceptable and the fans deserve better. Playing the first match of their qualifying campaign, Italy were stunned after a ruthless first-half performance by Norway, who put three past the visitors thanks to Alexander Sorloth, Antonio Nusa and Erling Haaland. Italy sit fourth in Group I, while Norway lead the group with nine points from three matches. Estonia, Moldova and Israel are also in Group I. "I have no explanation at the moment. You just have to go inside and realise the performance tonight. Our fans don't deserve this," Donnarumma told Italian TV channel Rai Sport. "We all have to come out of these games together, we need to examine our conscience." The four-times World Cup winners have not qualified for the global showpiece event since 2014. Italy manager Luciano Spalletti said his team were going through a difficult patch and that he would speak with the Italian Football Federation about the situation. "From us, it has to come from us first of all. We are Italy and these matches are not acceptable... We must be more united than before," said Donnarumma, who won the Champions League, Ligue 1, French Cup and French Super Cup titles with Paris St Germain in the recently concluded season. Italy next host fifth-placed Moldova on Monday. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
