After fending off two break points in the opening game, Ruud was the first to break after a number of wayward shots from his opponent.
Though Alcaraz continued to struggle to find the court, he had the opportunity to level in the next game but at break point saw his forehand deflect out off the net cord.
Two further chances followed but Ruud withstood the danger and was rewarded for his resolve when Alcaraz again placed a forehand out of bounds for the double break.
Ruud served out the set to love with an ace, only the second set he had taken from Alcaraz – who hit 18 unforced errors and landed less than 50% of his first serves in the opener.
But the Spaniard reset for the second set, dropping just a single point across his first three service games before breaking for the first time.
He looked to be cruising towards levelling the match but Ruud fought back – earning himself two break back points with a lob on to the baseline, but needing only one as Alcaraz netted a backhand.
As Alcaraz’s level continued to slip, a rejuvenated Ruud – who had been just two points from losing the set – broke again before serving out the win with an ace on his third match point, capping a run of five straight games.
Alcaraz and Ruud are joined in the John Newcombe Group by German Alexander Zverev – a two-time ATP Finals champion – and Russian Andrey Rublev, who play in Monday’s evening session from 19:30 GMT.
“Offering emotional support should, of course, be central to any good relationship”
Skynesher/Getty Images
After one of my recent book talks, an audience member described a friend who was having a hard time. Every conversation turned to the stress the friend was experiencing at work or the marital problems she was facing at home. “I want to be there for her,” my new acquaintance told me. “But I don’t seem to be helping.”
Offering emotional support should, of course, be central to any good relationship – and until recently, I thought that patient listening was the best help that someone…
Emergency services were called to the large town centre fire on Sunday evening
Buildings have been destroyed after a large town centre blaze which was tackled by more than 100 firefighters.
Gwent Police and 14 fire crews were called to the scene on Frogmore Street, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, at about 20:35 GMT on Sunday.
The Magic Cottage charity shop and other nearby buildings have been destroyed and a building remained alight on Monday morning, but no injuries have been reported.
About 12 nearby residents from three properties, who had been evacuated to Abergavenny Leisure Centre, have now left the leisure centre, according to Monmouthshire council’s leader.
Mario Chip
More than 100 firefighters have been tackling the blaze which has destroyed buildings
Mary Ann Brocklesby said: “I can only imagine how awful they must’ve felt being woken in the middle of the night and being taken to the leisure centre.”
She said some residents have been able to return home, while others were with friends.
Those who had been in social housing were “being supported to go to a place where they feel safe”.
“This is dreadful, absolutely dreadful, horrific, the scene, the fire, the smoke, the fear, so frightening for residents and for people living around here,” she added.
“It was centred around a lovely old row of shops which are well known to residents. The reports were that it was spreading quite rapidly which was alarming, but thankfully no-one [was] hurt.”
Abergavenny fire: More than 100 firefighters tackle blaze
Mr Pugh said the affected building was best known for formerly being home to family-run business Richards of Abergavenny.
“Frogmore Street is one of the main arteries through town for pedestrians and that building is one that was occupied for 90, 100 years by a family business… I think the whole town will feel the effects of this for some time.”
Louise Dryland, another local resident who went to the scene after seeing reports of the fire on social media, said she saw the building collapse in front of her.
“You could hear the snapping and cracking, and then [the firefighters] pointed their hoses back, and it all when down in front of us,” she said.
The blaze broke out at the rear of the Magic Cottage charity shop, which was destroyed by the flames
Mustafa Burak Karaoz, who also lives nearby, said he saw crews “using water from the river to fill the fire engines” as he passed by.
Richard John, a Conservative councillor for Mitchel Troy and Trellech ward, described the fire as “horrendous” and “heartbreaking” as he thanked emergency services on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Google
The Magic Cottage charity shop had moved into the building last year, as shown in this Google Streetview photo from 2023
Laura Wright, a Labour councillor for Grofield ward, said the fire was “absolutely devastating”.
She spoke of her gratitude to those “working hard to get everything under control and make sure that residents are safe”.
Treasury minister Darren Jones has said the UK government’s commitment to Ukraine is “resolute” amid fears incoming US President Donald Trump could push the country into giving up territory to Russia.
Jones told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, “Ukraine should be able to recover its country as it was previously structured” and that there “shouldn’t be an element of conceding to illegal invasions from Russia”.
He added he would not comment on “hypothetical scenarios” of a future US administration.
Speaking to the same programme, Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said the UK had to find a “shared way of working with the US” on Ukraine.
During the election campaign, Trump characterised the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a drain on US resources and said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day”.
The president-elect has not offered details of how he would resolve the conflict,
However, a research paper written by two of his former national security advisers has argued that the US should continue its weapons supply to Ukraine, but make the support conditional on Kyiv entering peace talks with Russia.
To entice Russia, the West would promise to delay Ukraine’s entry into Nato, the military alliance of European and North American nations.
The former advisers argued Ukraine should not give up its hopes of getting its territory back from Russian occupation, but that it should negotiate based on current front lines.
Asked how the UK government would respond if Trump did compel Ukraine to make territorial concessions, Jones said: “Our commitment to Ukraine as a country here in the UK is resolute.
“We continue to support Ukraine with billions of pounds of funding every year and support from our armed forces in line with our commitments through Nato.”
Asked if the UK still respected Ukraine’s desire to get back territories such as Crimea, Jones said: “That is the basis on which the UK is operating.”
Dame Priti, who was appointed shadow foreign secretary earlier this week, agreed Ukraine should not have to concede Crimea.
“No, of course not,” she said adding: “We’ve been unequivocal as Conservatives in government… we stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine.”
She added that Trump “hasn’t entered the White House yet” and it would be wrong to speculate on future US foreign policy.
“I think, take one step back, let’s be mature about this.
“We need to have dialogue and this comes back to having a strong relationship with our closest ally.
“I would urge our government going forward to be constructive in those discussions.”
Watch: Russia suffers ‘worst month for casualties’, says UK defence chief Radakin
Speaking to the same programme, Chief of the UK Defence Staff Sir Tony Radakin said Russia had suffered its worst ever month for casualties since the start of the Ukraine war, with around 1,500 dying or wounded every single day.
Sir Tony said the losses were “for tiny increments of land” but that there was “no doubt that Russia is making tactical, territorial gains and that is putting pressure on Ukraine”.
“Russia is spending over 40% of its public expenditure now on defence and security – that is an enormous drain on Russia as a country.
“I’m saying the longer the war goes on, the more difficult it is.”
He reiterated the UK government’s stance that Western allies would be resolute for “as long as it takes” adding: “That’s the message President Putin has to absorb and the reassurance for President Zelensky.”
Former Labour minister Lord Peter Mandelson said: “Whatever happens to the fringes of Ukraine territory – and in that I don’t think anyone should be dictating to the Ukrainians what they do – what is sacrosanct is their freedom. That’s not up for grabs.”
He said the UK should work with the US to secure Ukraine’s freedom and its borders to ensure Russia “can’t invade again”.
He added that would be possible, not by offering Ukraine Nato membership, but by building “stronger, deeper” economic relationships with the country.
There have been reports that Lord Mandelson could be appointed the UK’s new ambassador to the United States.
Asked if he was in the frame for the high-profile position, he said: “Nobody has spoken to me about this job.”
On whether he would be interested, he said he would be “very interested indeed in giving advice about trade to whoever is appointed”.
In addition to criticising the amount the US is spending to support Ukraine, Trump has also repeatedly urged Nato members to spend more on their own defence, accusing European countries of free-riding on America.
Nato countries are expected to spend 2% of their national income on defence. At the moment 23 countries – including the UK – meet the target, compared to just six in 2021.
The Labour government has committed to increasing spending from 2.3% to 2.5% – but has not set a date for hitting the figure.
Jones said the government would not commit to a deadline until it had completed its strategic defence review into the current state of the armed forces.
The nucleus of the Xenon atom can assume different shapes depending on the balance of internal forces at play. As two Xenon atoms collide in the CERN experiment, extremely hot conditions are created triggering the nuclei shapes to change. Credit: You Zhou, NBI
Based on an experiment at CERN, a collaboration led by the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, can predict hitherto unchartered changes in the shape of nuclei.
The collaboration between the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) and a theoretical group from Peking University has opened the door to new insights into the atomic nucleus from an unexpected point of view.
It turns out that the evolution of the most violent collisions between nuclei, as they are studied at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, depends on the initial conditions, namely the geometry and shape of the colliding nuclei, which are in their ground state. More surprisingly, this insight also allows us to determine properties of the colliding nuclei that cannot easily be studied by other methods.
The researchers have predicted how the shape changes and fluctuations of the colliding nuclei will influence the outcome of extreme high-energy conditions. This paves the way for further studies which will yield a better understanding of the dynamic behavior of nuclei. An article on the results has been published in Physical Review Letters.
The predictions are theoretical but based on an experiment at the world’s leading physics research center, CERN, Switzerland.
“The research represents a significant step forward in understanding nuclear structure, shedding light on how the internal shapes of nuclei can transition,” says You Zhou, Associate Professor at NBI. He led the project, which was a collaboration between NBI and the group of Professor Huichao Song, Peking University, China.
Shaped like an American football
The nuclei of different atom species have different shapes, from round to oval. For their investigations, Zhou and his colleagues focused on Xenon, which has an oval form, resembling an American football.
Furthermore, Xenon is one of several atoms which may exhibit a variety of configurations—spherical, prolate, or oblate—and will alternate between these depending on the precise balance of the forces at play inside the atomic nucleus.
Such changes, known as nuclear shape transitions, are not only key to the stability of elements but also reveal deeper insight into the nature of strong interactions between protons and neutrons.
During an eight-hour experiment, Xenon atoms collided in the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This accelerates the Xenon nuclei to near the speed of light.
As the nuclei collide with each other the temperature can be raised to about 5 trillion degrees Celsius, whereby the components of the nucleus c—protons and neutrons—are broken down into smaller constituents, quarks and gluons, forming so-called quark-gluon plasma, QGP for short.
A highly surprising finding
The extremely high temperatures can only be sustained for a very brief time. The conditions of interest exist for less than 10-24 seconds. This is much shorter than any measurement can handle.
“Therefore, we cannot follow the individual steps which result from colliding the atoms. We must look at the resulting products, and reconstruct the processes to match the findings,” explains Professor Jens Jørgen Gaardhøje, NBI.
It was the laborious work of interpreting the experimental data that provided the new insight, says You Zhou. “The resulting data could only be explained if we assume the Xenon nuclei to have an American football-like shape. This is consistent with what people learned in the past, but still surprising since the energy in this study is one million times higher than in earlier experiments.
“The general assumption has always been that the outcome of the collisions at very high energy would wash out any particular identity of the colliding nuclei and that the original geometry might not play a significant role for the resulting products.”
Perfect liquid filled the infant universe
As is often the case in fundamental research, the surprising result came as an added benefit. The main purpose of the high energy nuclear collisions experiment was not to investigate the nuclear shape transitions but rather to gain insight into the young universe. The extremely high temperature that can be obtained using the LHC corresponds to the conditions which existed just a millionth of a second after the Big Bang and before.
“According to our previous measurements at LHC, at this very high energy level the quark-gluon plasma is a liquid with very small viscosity. This is what we call a perfect liquid,” reports You Zhou, continuing, “The experiment was designed to investigate how the viscosity of the plasma changes, as the system evolves.”
Clever methodology made it possible
With 129 nucleons (54 protons and 75 neutrons), Xenon is a large atom. As two Xenon atoms collide head-on in the LHC, up to some 30,000 smaller particles—mainly quarks and gluons and their antiparticles—are formed. Calculating the properties and correlations of so many particles is impossible even with the best supercomputers.
“It was assumed that correlating three particles would be enough to probe the triaxial structure of Xenon. However, the results came out too crude, and we decided to extend the samples to six particles to examine whether Xenon has a fixed triaxial structure or its shape is changing,” says You Zhou.
Moving from three to six particles was no easy decision, since the amount of calculation grows exponentially with each added particle.
“Fortunately, we were able to develop an algorithm which allows us to do the calculations very efficiently. So, we can cope without the need for supercomputing. To our knowledge, we are one of the very few groups in the world able to do this. This opens, not only for much more sophisticated studies of the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, but also of the initial conditions and how these evolve during the expansion process,” notes Jens Jørgen Gaardhøje.
The group hopes to obtain time at LHC for a follow-up experiment in the summer of 2025.
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Theoretical predictions provide a first peek at nuclear shape transitions (2024, November 11)
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