stunned

Novak Djokovic suffered from punishing heat and humidity on Saturday but made a match of it before falling 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to Thiago Tirante in what could be the Serb’s last appearance at the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters.

The second-round battle lasted for more than two and a half hours, and it proved too much for the 24-time Grand Slam champion, who was playing his first match since he lost to Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon semifinals more than a month ago.

Top-seeded Alexander Zverev, the French Open champion who fell to Sinner in the Wimbledon final, was more fortunate, squeezing out an opening 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Cameron Norrie in a match that took two hours and 45 minutes and ended at 2:15am.

Britain’s Norrie has now lost all eight of his matches against the German, winner of the Cincinnati title five years ago, who is hoping a return to Ohio will help him shake off an abrupt exit in Canada last week.

Norrie had wrapped up the opening set before Zverev began to find his footing to level the match.

Norrie saved six break points in a 12-minute game to begin the deciding set but was broken twice as Zverev advanced.

“I needed to get a match rhythm,” Zverev said. “The confidence was not there after Canada.

“The first set was not great, but the other two were at a high level, and I’m happy about that.”

Depleted Djokovic

Djokovic, who claimed the last of his three Cincinnati titles in 2023, took the opening set against Argentina’s Tirante with little fuss.

But the sweltering afternoon temperatures took a toll.

“It was a combination of the heat and humidity, all those things,” he said. “Everything involved makes it worse.”

Djokovic won a brutal 18-minute third game of the second, saving four break points over nine deuces. But he was bent over in distress between several points and even dropped to his hands and knees after one particularly gruelling exchange.

Djokovic took a medical timeout after that game, with the physio and then a doctor coming on court to assist with assessments and ice towels.

After Tirante took the second set, both players cooled off in the locker room.

Slightly revived, Djokovic set the pace again in the deciding set. But it all went wrong in the ninth game, when Djokovic saved three break points before getting it wrong on a drop shot to bring up a fourth break chance that his opponent converted.

Tirante clinched the biggest win of his career in the next game as Djokovic again failed to land a drop shot on match point.

The Serb, who must now try to regroup before the US Open starts on August 30, admitted he might have played his last match in Cincy.

“It looks like I won’t be back, unfortunately, to play here,” he said.

Tirante called the win the best of his career.

“I managed the nerves of playing a legend like Novak. It was all so much pressure.”

‘Focused’ Eala advances

In the WTA draw, Philippines sensation Alexandra Eala advanced to the third round 6-1, 3-0 as injured Elena-Gabriela Ruse retired from their match during a weather delay.

The Romanian had received treatment on her right ankle just before play was halted by a thunderstorm, Ruse pulling the plug during the delay.

Eala, the emerging WTA star who captured her first WTA title in Washington, DC, this month, will next play ninth-seeded American Amanda Anisimova, who beat Turk Zeynep Sonmez 6-2, 6-3.

“I was playing well and feeling really focused,” Eala said. “I tried to stay in the zone.”

“A retirement is not the way you want to end a match,” she added. “Injuries are not fun.”

Roland Garros finalist Maja Chwalinska advanced 6-2, 6-2 over Spain’s Cristina Bucsa.

Wimbledon winner Linda Noskova followed suit with her 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Britain’s Katie Boulter.

There was heartbreak for Payton Stearns, who grew up just blocks from the tennis centre. She lost 7-6 (9/7), 1-6, 7-5 to Dane Clara Tauson, who played through back pain but rallied from 4-1 down in the final set to win.

Detroit, Michigan – The sighs in the audience were audible as United States Congresswoman Haley Stevens closed in on Abdul El-Sayed’s lead in the Michigan Democratic primary for the US Senate.

El-Sayed, a public health advocate, took the stage after midnight as uncertainty had dampened the once-celebratory mood among supporters in Detroit early on Wednesday.

“I wish I could tell you that I was declaring victory right about now. It turns out it takes a long time to count some votes in Michigan. It’s a big state,” he joked.

The progressive candidate went on to remind the crowd of what his campaign was up against: tens of millions of dollars in campaign spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other special-interest groups.

“I want you to remind them that if we come through this, when we come through this, inshallah [God willing]”, he said, “that we’ll have taken $70m on the chin and kept fighting back.”

Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, continued to shrink El-Sayed’s lead as the votes came in, bringing the margin between them down to less than 1 percent.

The final results arrived later on Wednesday morning, long after the sun had risen on a new day. El-Sayed had won by a razor-thin margin.

He had fended off not just Stevens but also the pro-Israel groups and Democratic power brokers in Michigan, including top officials from the party, like Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had endorsed his opponent.

The result appeared to stun the US political system, dealing yet another setback to the pro-Israel Democrats and sparking a response from President Donald Trump, who was quick to label El-Sayed as a “Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel”.

But the message from the vote results was clear: Campaign spending and big-name endorsements may no longer be enough to secure victory within the Democratic Party.

‘It’s not just the status quo anymore’

El-Sayed’s supporters say the delayed celebrations and the smaller-than-expected margin of victory should not diminish the significance of the elections.

Democratic state legislator Alabas Farhat said El-Sayed’s victory sends a message that, if candidates run on an anti-war platform and are willing to take on special interest groups like AIPAC, people will vote for them.

“It’s not just the status quo anymore and these establishment politicians who are used to coasting through these elections,” Farhat told Al Jazeera.

“It’s now folks who want to come in and disrupt and deliver big, bold agendas and relief for the working families of Michigan and anywhere else.”

Stevens had overwhelming support from the Democratic Party establishment. She was backed by Whitmer, former Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and retiring Senator Gary Peters, whose seat she was running for.

Defeating Stevens allows El-Sayed to compete in November’s general elections against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who is backed by Trump and will likely receive support from pro-Israel groups.

AIPAC has already indicated it will continue its spending in Michigan to beat El-Sayed in the general election. “Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

The pro-Israel lobby group also downplayed El-Sayed’s victory, highlighting wins by other pro-Israel candidates, including in Missouri, where Congressman Wesley Bell comfortably won against his progressive challenger, former Congresswoman Cori Bush.

“While disappointed that some of our AIPAC-backed candidates did not prevail, our community is proud to support pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans who stand for our values, and we are encouraged that voters in races across this primary season continue to broadly choose leaders who support a strong US-Israel partnership,” AIPAC said.

Even with polls showing that the general election is up for grabs, analysts are emphasising the historic nature of El-Sayed’s primary victory.

Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders called El-Sayed’s win the “most extraordinary victory” in modern US politics.

“Have you ever heard of a candidate in a major race getting outspent nine to one, taking on the entire establishment and winning?” Sanders said on the Pod Save America podcast.

“I cannot recall somebody having done that.”

Left-wing victories

El-Sayed was not alone in security victories in the state’s primary races. The overall result in Michigan is seen as another major achievement for the progressive left in this election cycle.

In Tuesday’s election, progressive state legislator Donavan McKinney defeated pro-Israel incumbent Shri Thanedar in a US House Democratic primary. In a district north of Detroit, left-wing climate organiser William Lawrence also won a Democratic primary for Congress by 15 points.

Across the US, from California to Colorado to Pennsylvania to New Jersey to New York, progressives have won similar races, ousting several incumbents and claiming open seats in safe Democratic districts.

What makes El-Sayed’s win significant is not only the spending and endorsements he faced, but also that he won a state-wide race in a swing state that voted for Trump less than two years ago. Michigan is home to more than 10 million people.

Progressive Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rabb, who is on his way to Congress after winning a competitive primary for a heavily Democratic seat in May, said left-wing candidates are prevailing because they are able to engage voters with a compassionate and substantive approach.

He said El-Sayed’s victory sends a message to the Democratic establishment: “They’ve got to take a look at the electoral calculus going forward.”

“The things that used to work are old and are arcane and do not reach the types of people that will come out who won’t vote for normal traditional Democrats,” Rabb said. “But he’s bringing out folks who haven’t come out in a long time or ever.”

He added that El-Sayed’s ability to broaden the Democratic base will help him defeat Rogers in November.

El-Sayed’s campaign slogan is, “Money out of politics. Money in your pockets. Medicare for all.”

His platform is focused on affordability and expanding access to healthcare. But AIPAC’s involvement in the race and the polarisation over Israel made the conflict in the Middle East a key issue in the election.

Russell Ellis, the social media commentator known as Jolly Good Ginger, said voters across the US are showing that they are “fed up” with Israel and AIPAC.

“The amount of voters that are drawing a red line at sending bombs to continue a genocide is much larger than people are accepting that it is. It’s massive,” he told Al Jazeera.

“I think most Americans can agree that we can’t support genocide, and that using American taxpayer dollars and American bombs to commit genocide in Gaza, in Sudan, in Congo, anywhere is unacceptable.”

‘We want to fund healthcare, not warfare’

Despite his criticism of Israel, El-Sayed always brought the political conversation back to Michigan.

The US has spent billions of dollars on military support for Israel, its Middle East ally, and even more on the war with Iran – a conflict that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking for decades.

El-Sayed has argued that the money spent on war should go to help communities across the US and Michigan.

His supporters say the progressive wins in Michigan show that this approach is resonating with voters.

“Today’s historic victories in Michigan prove that Palestine will win at the polls again and again,” Iman Abid, the political director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, said in a statement.

“AIPAC can try dumping millions of dollars into propaganda, but at the end of the day, American voters don’t want our tax dollars to go toward bombing families abroad. We want to fund healthcare, not warfare.”

Sally Howell, a history professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who pioneered academic research about the Arab community, said El-Sayed’s win represents “genuine change” for Michigan.

“It tells us that voters are very frustrated with the establishment – the establishment in Washington and the establishment in the Democratic Party,” Howell told Al Jazeera.

“They want leaders who are going to bring change, not more of the same.”

Rob Rinder and Ruth Goodman returned to screens to explore Victorian Britain at a crucial moment

A devastating discovery was made during a new documentary series.

Last year, Channel 5 introduced Rich Lives, Poor Lives, a new history documentary series where presenters Rob Rinder and Ruth Goodman investigate key moments in British history from the perspective of both the rich and the poor.

Rob and Ruth returned to screens on Tuesday (August 4) to front a new instalment of the series, which saw them travel back to the 1840s when railway mania swept Britain and transformed the fortunes of the rich and poor.

During the episode, Rob followed wealthy Victorians who poured their money into the railway boom. They included George Hudson, known as the “Railway King”, who seized on the craze to build a vast personal empire, and Lord Morpeth, an aristocrat who embraced the railways.

Meanwhile, Ruth investigated the lives of those who built and worked on the railways. The presenter uncovered the stories of railway worker Thomas Eaton and Mary Arguile, Britain’s first female station mistress.

Later in the episode, Rob and Ruth compared the differences between first class and third class on one of George Hudson’s trains.

Back in the 1840s, hundreds of third class passengers were jammed into small cattle wagons, leading to many people reporting injuries, including black eyes, bruised faces, and bloody noses.

“Oh my goodness. You go on a nice day out and you end up coming out like you’ve been boxing,” a surprised Rob said.

The pressure to squeeze more and more money from the railways took its toll, something the unskilled laborers up at the Woodhead Tunnel, including Thomas Eaton, knew all too well. Reports of terrible accidents at the tunnel soon reached the desks of the government.

On the 23rd of June 1846, Thomas Eaton was one of 32 witnesses summoned to Westminster to give his testimony to a committee.

Ruth revealed what happened as she stood in a courtroom alongside Rob. Reading out Eaton’s testimony, Ruth said: “Several were killed, sometimes when the engine was drawing them up, sometimes striking at the side. It threw them out and killed them.”

Eaton saw about 40 people killed in the 18 months that he worked on a particular section of the line. The death toll on that area of the line was at 3% of the workforce, a revelation that stunned Rob.

Ruth went on to say: “It was pretty sobering stuff, but the men running the inquiry didn’t seem as sympathetic as you’d expect.”

The members asked if the accidents were caused by the workers’ “carelessness”, suggesting that it was the fault of those who died.

“The worst was yet to come,” Ruth then noted, before reading the testimony of an engineer called Purdon. When asked if there was a safer way to work, he replied: “Oh, well, perhaps it is safer, but it is attended with such a loss of time, and the difference is so very small, I would not recommend the loss of time for the sake of all the extra lives it would save.”

A horrified Rob then said: “Gosh, that’s an admission. Profit over lives.”

The Victorians with Rob Rinder and Ruth Goodman is available to stream on Channel 5

KATIE Price was left feeling stunned as she reunited with a club bouncer that she kissed on a night out 30 years ago.

Katie, 48, shared a clip reminiscing about her Wednesday nights at London’s China White back in the day.

Speaking with the hosts of The Rated Show, Katie explained: “I loved it there.”

One of them replied “Ask her how and why the day she came down is so memorable.”

“What did I f***ing do now? What didn’t I do?” laughed Katie.

“I’m the doorman that you kissed at China White’s,” he said.

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A shocked Katie exclaimed: “No!”

His friend added: “He’s been living off that for 30 years. You know he hasn’t washed his face for 30 years.”

“That shows how old I am,” joked Katie.

She then explained how she couldn’t wait to appear on their show.

Katie looked happy and relaxed in the video clip but it comes days after she shared a snap on her Instagram without her wedding ring.

Katie tied the knot with conman Lee in January, just 10 days after meeting him.

Ever since, stories of Lee’s lies, scams and imprisonments have filled the pages of newspapers and magazines.

However, The Sun’s explosive dossier of evidence against Lee – including a “gay affair rumour” – has, according to a source, left Katie with no choice but to consult a divorce lawyer.

Clemmie also confirmed in her in-depth article that Katie is refusing to return to Dubai – where Lee lives and is currently locked up in prison.

Meanwhile Katie has vowed to quiz her husband over his offer to sell a sex tape of them – as her sister Sophie branded him a “d***head”.

It comes after The Sun revealed Lee’s sickening plan of hawking an alleged “sex tape” with his wife.

A British tourist was left stunned by the cheaper grocery prices in a Spanish supermarket compared to the UK, and he’s not the only one

There’s no question that food prices in British supermarkets have skyrocketed, yet we’ve largely resigned ourselves to paying whatever it costs for our weekly shop. But when Brits venture abroad to certain destinations, the stark contrast in prices becomes glaringly obvious, leaving many utterly speechless.

That was certainly the case for Cavan O’Grady, who headed off on holiday with his mum to celebrate her 63rd birthday, and was left gobsmacked after popping into a Spanish supermarket. The pair stayed with his aunt in the town of La Línea de la Concepción, near the border with Gibraltar, but it was a trip to the local supermarket that truly made an impression on him.

Alongside soaking up the glorious 30-degree sunshine, Cavan – better known as Cav – revealed that a food shopping trip to Carrefour made him acutely aware of just how different things are compared to back home in the UK.

The 27-year-old captioned his clip: “Spanish supermarkets are a different level”.

Strolling through the aisles, the Birmingham lad remarked: “TikTok, I’m going to tell you something, Spain knows how to do it in these supermarkets.

“First of all, the place is absolutely massive. It’s unreal how fresh all this stuff looks, you’re just not getting this back home.

“This would make you want to eat like a king out here. And do you know what, price-wise, it’s so much cheaper here than it is back home.”

Cav described it as yet another “win” for Spain, highlighting exactly why he loves visiting. One local said: “Thank you very much for saying what no one ever says, there is good agriculture, livestock, fishing, we have everything in our country.”

Another added: “Mercadona is one of the crown jewels.

“I live in Spain, it’s a lot cheaper to live there than in the UK, the bills are cheaper too,” one woman shared about the country she lives in.

Some people remarked that “Spain was a paradise not long ago,” but now it’s “too expensive” for what they’re paid.

Cav said: “It showed me how we’re getting absolutely had on products in the UK. I was genuinely overwhelmed by the quality and prices on offer in that Spanish supermarket.”

But the supermarkets weren’t the only thing that left him thoroughly impressed, as he gave the local gym a glowing “10/10” rating.

“I wanted to find a proper bodybuilding gym, which I found, and the gym is sick, the equipment’s sick, and the locals are really nice and friendly,” he shared, revealing he’d certainly return to that gym during his stay with his mum.

In another clip, Cav said: “TikTok, I might actually move to Spain […] This is the life for me… Might have to be a quick move here, lads”.

Love Island fans were left seething with the decision by bombshells George and Yasmin as two islanders were forced to leave the show already

Love Island is now into day three of the new series, and with the sun heating up, so is the drama. Viewers were left less than impressed as the bombshells made their eviction decision on Wednesday, calling it a ‘sinister’ move.

Yasmin was in tears as the time for the bombshells to make their decision approached. And their call stunned the viewers as Ellie and Samraj were sent home. But while tears ran down the villa, with gutted Samraj and Ellie needing to exit, they were told that all may not be as it seemed.

And the decision – and announcement – left fans stunned. On X, formerly known as Twitter, after Yasmin and George’s decision, one user wrote: “That was sinister #loveisland.”

Another said: “ELLIE & SAMRAJ ????? WOTTTTTTT #LoveIsland.” And a third agreed, calling the decision to dump Samraj “crazy”. With twists and bombshells already flowing, bosses would have expected the drama to unfold. And it appears that is exactly what is happening. Viewers questioned the cliffhanger as the show came to a close.