Teenager Joao Fonseca beat American Learner Tien to be crowned the second-youngest winner of the Next Gen ATP Finals title.
The 18-year-old Brazilian, who was the youngest player in this year’s competition and lowest ranked, overcame Tien 2-4 4-3 (10-8) 4-0 4-2 in Jeddah.
Only Jannik Sinner, in 2019, has lifted the title at a younger age than Fonseca, who won all five of his matches at the season-ending tournament for the top-ranked male players aged 21 and under.
The pair also met in the group stage on Thursday, with Fonseca, ranked 145th in the world, again coming out on top against his 19-year-old opponent.
The event has a best-of-five format with four games winning a set.
As well as world number one Sinner, other former champions include four-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz and world number 11 Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Tien started brightly and took the opening set in Saudi Arabia. But once Fonseca got himself level after a tight second set that went into a long tie-break, he was able to frustrate his opponent and seal the title in the fourth set.
“I was really nervous before the match. I knew it was going to be so difficult,” Fonseca said.
“I played a final against Learner in juniors at the 2023 US Open and I know the way he can play. He is such a nice guy and a great player, so I knew it was going to be difficult, mentally and physically. But I got through.”
Speaking before the final, Fonseca spoke of how he wanted to emulate Sinner, for whom he was a hitting partner at last year’s ATP Finals – where he said he was convinced by the Italian to turn professional.
Bianca Guaccero and Giovanni Pernice were partners on Ballando Con Le Stelle – the Italian answer to Strictly
Giovanni Pernice has won the Italian version of Strictly Come Dancing months after a BBC internal investigation into complaints about his behaviour on the show.
Professional dancer Pernice said his Ballando Con Le Stelle victory with partner Bianca Guaccero, who is also his girlfriend, was a dream, adding: “After a difficult year I’m back”.
In September, the BBC upheld complaints of harassment and verbal bullying made against him by his 2023 partner Amanda Abbington, but cleared him of allegations of physical aggression.
It had been confirmed in June that Pernice would not be featuring in this year’s Strictly.
Pernice and Guaccero, who is an actress and singer, won the 19th season of Ballando Con Le Stelle after performing dances including the Argentine Tango and the Charleston.
The pair had recently confirmed their status as a romantic couple.
Italian-born Pernice shared several posts on Instagram about his win and thanked UK fans for their support.
The BBC apologised to Pernice’s former partner Amanda Abbington in September. Abbington, who played Mary Morstan in Sherlock, has since said she felt vindicated and that she had “no regrets” after making the complaints.
In response to the BBC’s findings, Pernice said he was “relieved” allegations he was threatening and abusive were found not to be true.
He said he was a “strict teacher” but not a bully in a TV interview in October, admitting frustration is commonplace for both contestants and the professionals with the pressure “to perform perfectly on the Saturday night”.
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Giovanni Pernice and Amanda Abbington during a live Strictly performance in October 2023
On Instagram on Sunday, Pernice said: “We did it!! WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS !! after a difficult year.”
He added: “It felt amazing to be in the final again doing what I love – and then to win as well was a dream and definitely something I will never forget!”
On Saturday he had addressed his “dear friends in the UK, saying he and his partner could tell where the votes for the show were coming from as it is “all about likes on social media”.
Pernice wrote: “We just want to say a massive thank you, because realistically, we couldn’t do anything without you.
“We can totally see which part of the votes are coming from the UK and you are being unbelievably amazing.”
The north west of England had the highest rate of cancelled railway stops across Britain
Manchester Victoria has been the worst of Britain’s busiest railway stations for cancellations so far this year.
About one in 10 of 10,506 scheduled stops were cancelled between January and November 2024, according to National Rail figures collected by train data website On Time Trains.
This contributed to the north-west of England being the region with the highest rate of cancelled railway stops across Britain at 6.5%, with 611,047 cancellations.
The government said it was committed to delivering the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation, bringing services back into public ownership to reinvest in them.
Meher, 22, a recent graduate from Bolton, has experienced regular cancellations at Manchester Victoria.
She said as a student in Preston, she had probably missed hundreds of hours of university because of train cancellations.
“I think most of the time, we were more stressed about our trains than our work,” she said. “It was mostly at evening time when we were heading back, so we were coming home later than expected and missing quite a bit of mosque.”
Meher said cancelled trains had meant travelling home in the dark more often, adding: “If it’s darker, then it’s much worse and you’re alone as well. It does impact your safety.”
Daniel said train cancellations had affected his university experience
Daniel, 19, who also commutes to university via Manchester Victoria, said he usually aimed to arrive an hour early in anticipation of cancellations disrupting his journey.
Although living at home meant he saved money, he said relying on trains had proven stressful.
“A lot of my friends live on campus and they have it much easier – but I wouldn’t like to pay for accommodation,” he said.
More than three million train stops in Britain have been cancelled from January to November this year – 3.8% of the nearly 83 million scheduled.
This breaks down into a 3.9% cancellation rate in England and Wales and 2.9% in Scotland.
BBC analysis calculated the percentage of scheduled stops with a cancelled arrival and/or departure by using National Rail data collected by On Time Trains.
This differs from the cancellation analysis by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), which factors in full and partial cancellations, planned timetable changes, strikes and reduced staffing.
Amber, 21, travels from Liverpool Lime Street regularly, but said her train was cancelled about 25% of the time.
“It’s annoying that the minimum service isn’t being adhered to,” she said. “It would be unheard of down south.
“Cities up north have to just deal with it, because there’s no other option.”
Liverpool Lime Street had the 11th highest cancellation rate of any station in Britain, with 12,062 trains (5.9%) cancelled between 1 January and 30 November this year.
Of the 100 railway stations in Britain ranked busiest by the ORR, three of the five worst for cancellations were in Manchester: Manchester Victoria (9.5%), Manchester Oxford Road (8.1%) and Manchester Piccadilly (6.7%).
In England, the regions with the worst overall cancellation rates were the North West on 6.5%, followed by the South West on 4.8% and the North East on 4.6%.
Three of the five areas across Britain with cancellation rates below the overall national rate were in the south or east of England.
Campaign for Better Transport
Michael Solomon Williams from Campaign for Better Transport said the rail network needed to improve
Michael Solomon Williams, from transport charity Campaign for Better Transport, said passengers in the North had “suffered for far too long”, with “far more” investment made in the South.
“There’s been a case of economic and social inequality which has been directly related to transport inequality over a number of years,” he said.
“We need to invest more in the north than in the south to rebalance things.”
Network Rail manages 20 of Britain’s busiest and biggest stations. It leases the rest to train operating companies who manage them but are not responsible for the punctuality of other operators using the stations.
Rail Delivery Group, which represents National Rail and train operators, said cancellations could be caused by weather, industrial action, trespass and track, train or signalling faults.
It said this was not acceptable and everyone was working hard to ensure train services were reliable and punctual.
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Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road were number one and two for cancellations among Great Britain’s busiest stations
Northern, which manages Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road stations, said it had been working hard to address train crew availability issues, to improve reliability.
It said a rest day working agreement had been reached with drivers and it would continue to work with the RMT union to find a “new way forward” after conductors recently rejected an offer relating to Sunday working.
The RMT said it was seeking further talks with the company.
The Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she was concerned by the figures on train cancellations. She said: “I’m not happy about the performance of Northern Rail at the moment.”
She added that the issue with Northern “is related to the availability of train crew specifically on a Sunday”.
“One of the things we’ve had to do there whilst we work through resolving that with the trade union and local workers is we’ve actually decided to reduce the timetable slightly to improve reliability”.
She said that in the new year, the government will be looking at how to reduce reliance on rest day working.
Network Rail, which manages Manchester Piccadilly station but does not run train services, said its job was to “help keep passengers safely on the move”.
It said it understood how frustrating disruption was for passengers and it supported train operators at the station to deliver a reliable service.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Passengers are being let down by poor services, which is why we are committed to delivering the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation.”
They said bringing services back into public ownership would put passengers at the heart and allow the government to reinvest in railways, while holding operators to account.
Four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, also died in the attack. Authorities are holding a suspect in pre-trial detention on counts of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.
Another tribute came from a fire department in nearby Schöppenstedt.
The Lower Saxony youth fire brigade also paid tribute to the nine-year-old.
“Our condolences go out to his family, his friends and everyone who was close to him,” it said in a statement.
“We stand by their side in these difficult times and express our deepest sympathy,” it added.
The attack on Friday left more than 200 people injured, with some left in a critical condition.
The four women who were also killed have not yet been identified.
The car ploughed into the crowded market via an emergency vehicle access lane about 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT) on Friday, police said.
Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, fleeing or hiding. Unverified social media footage showed the vehicle speeding through a pedestrian walkway between stalls.
Police said the driver then returned to the road and was forced to stop in traffic, where he was arrested.
Around 100 police, medics and firefighters attended the scene, according to city officials.
A 50-year-old man has been remanded in custody on suspicion of five counts of murder, multiple attempted murders and dangerous bodily harm, police said.
The suspect has been identified in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi-born psychiatrist who arrived in Germany in 2006.
The motive behind the attack remains unclear but authorities say they believe the driver acted alone.
German authorities are facing questions about security after reports they were warned last year that the suspect could pose a threat.
The Saudi foreign ministry said it warned the German government about al-Abdulmohsen’s extremist views, but received no response.
Three Major banks and Zelle rushed to bring a peer-to-peer payment network to market without first ensuring users would be protected against “widespread” fraud, alleges a lawsuit filed on Friday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo ignored customer complaints related to Zelle, with users losing hundreds of millions of dollars in scams, the regulatory agency alleges. Zelle is run by Early Warning Services, which is owned by the three banks named in the CFPB’s suit, along with four other financial institutions.Â
According to the CFPB, bank customers have lost more than $870 million over the seven years Zelle has been in operation. Early Warning and the three banks named in the complaint hastily created the payments network to head off rival payment apps including Venmo and CashApp without adequately protecting end users, the suit alleges. Â
“The nation’s largest banks felt threatened by competing apps, so they rushed to put out Zelle,” Rohit Chopra, the CFPB’s director, said in a statement. “By their failing to put in place proper safeguards, Zelle became a gold mine for fraudsters, while often leaving victims to fends for themselves.”Â
Zelle blasted the CFPB’s accusations as “legally and factually flawed,” with a spokesperson also suggesting the timing of the suit was “driven by political factors unrelated” to the company.
“The CFPB’s headline-grabbing number is misleading, as many reported fraud claims are not found to involve actual fraud after investigation,” the Zelle spokesperson said of the agency’s more than $870 million loss figure.
JPMorgan also accused the agency of pursuing a “political agenda,” stating that the agency was “overreaching its authority by making banks accountable for criminals, even including romance scammers.”Â
JPMorgan Chase said it prevents nearly $20 billion in fraud attempts each year, and that 99.95% of its transactions are completed without dispute.Â
A spokesperson for Wells Fargo declined to comment. Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Â
Offered by more than 2,200 banks and credit unions, Zelle has more than 143 million users in the U.S., according to the suit. Customers transferred a total of $481 billion in conducting 1.7 billion transactions during the first half of 2024, the CFPB noted.Â
Hundreds of thousands of customers filed fraud complaints and were denied assistance by Zelle and the three banks, according to the suit, which noted that some people were advised to contact those behind the fraud to get their money back.
Zelle “has been slow to implement anti-fraud measures, including closing accounts accused of fraud,” Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with TD Cowen Washington Research Group, said in a report, pointing to the CFPB’s allegations. “It also permitted the registration of emails that were impersonating legitimate entities, including Zelle itself.”
Since Zelle launched in 2017, according to the CFPB, JPMorgan Chase received 420,00 customer complaints involving more than $360 million; Bank of America heard from 210,000 customers with more than $290 million in fraud losses; and Wells Fargo tallied $220 million in fraud losses by 280,000 people.
“These troubling alleged practices need to be addressed by all parties as quickly as possible,” Mike Litt, consumer campaign director at US PIRG, a consumer advocacy group. “It’s crucial that in our increasingly cashless age, we have digital financial systems that the public can trust and use without fear of losing their money.”Â
In 2023 Early Warning began refunding money to an undisclosed number of fraud victims amid pressure from lawmakers. In late 2022, Sen. Elizabeth Warren issued a report that found increasing incidents of fraud and scams to be occurring on the popular payment app, with large banks typically reluctant to compensate victims, the Massachusetts Democrat said.Â
