SPORTS'It's been an easy retransition' - Williams on Wimbledon return
Serena Williams won seven of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles at Wimbledon
For Serena Williams, everything and nothing has changed on her return to Wimbledon.
She is not the same woman who walked off Centre Court four years ago after a loss to Harmony Tan.
Since evolving away and then back to tennis, she has had a second daughter, co-founded a National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team and danced at the Super Bowl.
Some of the faces that practise alongside her have changed. Even some of the grounds have changed, with Williams finding herself momentarily lost on her way to the media centre at Wimbledon.
On Tuesday, the 44-year-old will play Maya Joint, 24 years her junior, in the third match on Centre Court - 1,396 days since she last played in the singles.
No-one knows how it will go. But for the American great, just being on court is a success.
"It's been a very easy retransition. I'm back in the house that I stayed in [for] several years," Williams told Clare Balding in an interview for BBC TV.
"It's nothing too new, and at the same time it's everything new. Change is good.
"Success [for me] is just walking out there. I never expected to be here.
"Success is enjoying myself and sticking to my gameplan that my coach gives me, being disciplined - and that's what I'm trying to do."
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The Williams sisters - who will team up again for the doubles here - are synonymous with Wimbledon.
For a 19-year period, at least one Williams sister was in all but four singles finals at SW19. They won a combined 12 Wimbledon singles titles - seven for Serena and five for Venus - between 2000 and 2016. Elder sister Venus won it first. Little sister Serena won it more.
When they combined they were dominant, winning six women's doubles titles together. When they faced one another it was absorbing - two players who knew each other's games inside out, from years spent on the practice courts in Compton, California.
If you think of the Williams sisters you see them in the Wimbledon whites, moving around a grass court, two beautiful service motions, with athleticism, power, and touch at the net to boot.
As Serena said - it is not every day Wimbledon holds a wildcard for someone.
"I can name probably like a handful of people. I happened to be one of them," she said.
"I thought, 'I should really take this opportunity'. Who knows if I'll ever make it here again? This could be it.
"I was like, 'What's wrong with you, Serena? What are you thinking? Are you nuts?' I have this great opportunity to showcase what I do best."
Will her age and all that comes with it - being half a step slower out of the corners of the court, having to conserve more energy the longer a match goes on - be too tough to overcome?
Or will her aura, the sheer sense of simply just being Serena Williams, be enough to carry her through the opening round at least?
David Quayle, Williams' British hitting partner who helped her prepare for her return in the doubles at Queen's earlier in June, says it is "hard sometimes not to feel a little bit nervous" around Williams.
"It's a funny thing to see someone that you have watched their serve on TV for so many years, and then all of a sudden that serve is coming at you," he told BBC Sport in June.
"You're fighting between admiring some of the shots and actually playing them. She's got that kind of aura.
"I'm starting to getting a little bit more used to seeing her over the other side of the net, but every day is special."
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The nerves have come for Serena
Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk practised with the American the week before the Championships and told BBC Sport she did not know what to expect.
"I was a little nervous. I've never hit a ball with her, never practised, never played a match, so I didn't know what to expect," the 12th seed said.
"She played really good. She still has an incredible serve.
"She's very good on grass - I'm very excited to see her play."
Greece's Maria Sakkari added: "I never had any doubt that the way she plays and her shot-making would be fine.
"They were 'clean', as always. I believe she will win matches, especially on grass.
"After that, it will come down to how much she can endure over longer periods. I think that will be her biggest challenge."
Fellow great Novak Djokovic, who has remained a friend of Williams' away from the tour, said he had seen her in the gym "more than when she was at her prime".
"It tells me that she really wants this to work out the best way possible," the 24-time Grand Slam champion said.
"It's admirable, honestly, the effort she's putting in. I just hope that she will enjoy it because she really deserves it.
"She created something historical, legendary in her career. She deserves every applause she's going to get."
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OTHERSHomes harder to sell as high mortgage rates frustrate buyers
Three in five homes listed for sale since January remain on the market, according to property portal Zoopla, as high mortgage rates frustrate potential buyers.
A lack of demand from buyers, as well as some high asking prices from sellers, have left homes in some areas unsold.
Agreed sales were 7% below last year, Zoopla said, but the picture varied across the country with sales down 12% in Wales and 11% in the East Midlands.
First-time buyers were most exposed to high mortgage rates, although there are now signs of greater competition among lenders who are lowering rates.
A jump in mortgage rates in April - prompted by financial upheaval caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran - added an average of £125 a month to a typical mortgage at its peak compared with January.
In London, the peak saw £232 a month added to the average first-time buyer's costs.
The average two-year fixed rate jumped from 4.83% at the start of March to a peak of 5.90% on 12 April, according to the financial information service Moneyfacts. It has since dropped to 5.54%.
The increase was a major factor in pushing down demand from buyers in the UK by 15% compared with a year earlier, according to Zoopla's report which considers the market to the end of May.
However, in the north east of England mortgage costs for first-time buyers were only £66 a month higher over the same period.
"The national picture can only tell you so much," said Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla.
"For sellers still waiting for an offer, the conversation to have is about price. Correctly priced homes are selling, while overpriced homes are sitting."
However, he pointed out that recent cuts in mortgage rates were a positive for buyers.
"For buyers, rates are falling, there is more choice of homes for sale than a year ago and motivated sellers are willing to negotiate. If you are ready to move, conditions are more favourable than they were three months ago," he said.
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Interest rates fluctuate based on the Bank of England's base rate and market conditions
The Bank of England said mortgage approvals for house purchases fell to a two-and-a-half year low in May, as deals were pulled from sale and rates rose.
The drop in demand from first-time buyers, who are most exposed to higher borrowing costs, had an impact on the type of homes that remain unsold.
Zoopla said that two-thirds of one and two-bedroom flats listed this year were unsold.
However, there was little change in the pace at which two and three-bedroom homes were selling.
Agreed sales had also fallen at a much lower level in northern England and in Scotland, where there were fewer homes for sale and the cash increase in mortgage costs was smaller, Zoopla said.
Estate agents said homes for sale exceeded demand across various price ranges.
Uncertainty had been created by the financial impact of the Iran war, as well as changing political leadership in the UK.
"Sales are taking much longer and it is proving increasingly difficult to generate commitment," said Jeremy Leaf, a estate agent in north London.
"However, the overwhelming majority of sales which have been agreed are proceeding, although inevitably more slowly."
Lucian Cook, head of residential research at the estate agent Savills, said mortgage rates were just one of the factors affecting the housing market.
"Firstly, you've got uncertainty about the outlook for the economy. Clearly, if people are concerned about their personal finances, then they're less likely to move," he told the BBC's Today programme.
"We have also seen substantial regulatory reform in the private rented sector. That means some landlords have brought more stock to the market, that shifted the balance between demand and supply.
"And at the very top end of the market, we've got ongoing concerns around the tax environment and what may change there."
Are you struggling to sell, or buy, a property as a result of high mortgage rates?
SPORTSNetherlands crumble in penalty shootout as Morocco reach last 16
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Netherlands miss three spot kicks as Morocco come from behind to beat the Dutch on penalties in Monterrey to reach the last 16 of the 2026 World Cup.
MATCH REPORT: Netherlands 1-1 (2-3 pens) Morocco
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OTHERSIndia's biggest share sales tell the story of a country glued to its phones
Jio is expected to raise around $4bn (£3.02bn) with an estimated valuation of $120-160bn
India's largest stock exchange and its biggest telecoms operator will both go public by the end of this year in what experts say could be landmark listings for the country's capital markets.
Jio Platforms, the digital arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) - the world's largest derivatives exchange and among the top three equity exchanges by trading volume - filed draft papers for their initial public offerings just days apart last month.
Jio is expected to mop up around $4bn (£3.02bn) from the market at an estimated valuation of $120-160bn, while NSE's issue will reportedly offer 6% equity for $3.3bn, valuing the bourse at $57bn.
Beyond the unprecedented scale of the offerings - which could take India's overall market capitalisation up by several notches - investors are closely watching the listings because they represent the sweeping changes in the way Indians have come to live, consume, invest and transact in the last decade, Yatin Singh, CEO - Investment Banking at Emkay Global, told the BBC.
"These are unique businesses which don't get built often. NSE is a direct proxy of the 'financialisation' of Indian household savings into mutual funds and stocks, while Jio is the story of a company that single handedly ushered in a digital revolution, becoming a driving factor for several new-age Indian businesses," said Singh.
"Their listings could be seminal for the Indian markets in the way the marquee offerings of software companies became many decades ago," he adds.
Some 525 million subscribers use Jio data to make payments, watch web shows and shop online
Jio's belated entry into India's crowded telecom market in 2016 consolidated a highly fragmented industry of 17 operators and turned it into a virtual duopoly, as the Ambanis sparked a fierce pricing war by offering virtually free data to hundreds of millions of new users.
Barely 200 million Indians used the internet decade ago. That number is now inching closer to the billion mark with Jio alone amassing 525 million of those subscribers. They use its data to make payments, watch web shows and shop online.
In fact, Indians are now the largest consumers of mobile data globally, surpassing even developed markets like the US and China. And this has largely been driven by Jio's cheap tariffs that democratised smartphone use.
The way the country spends money and time has also changed dramatically as a result of this digitisation.
India's United Payments Interface (UPI), launched in the same year as Jio, went from processing near zero digital payments to 228 billion transactions in 2025, according to Zerodha, a brokerage. And paid subscribers to OTT platforms jumped 40% between 2019 and 2026.
"The monthly data bill of Indians quietly tripled, growing at 3x the rate of rural wages", according to a report from Kotak Bank, with people spending more and more time watching video and using social media apps.
NSE is the backbone of India's $4.85tn stock market, now the fourth-largest globally
The rise of the NSE, meanwhile, mirrors the explosion of retail investing in India, as millions of mom-and-pop investors entered the stock market during the pandemic. Fuelled by cheap mobile data and rising smartphone use, the number of online trading accounts surged from about 30 million to more than 200 million.
Its listing, long delayed by a host of governance issues, signals the "maturing" of India's market infrastructure and the broad-basing of its investor base, Feroze Azeez, of Anand Rathi Wealth Limited, a wealth management firm, told the BBC.
The exchange is the backbone of India's $4.85tn stock market, now the world's fourth largest by market capitalisation. Every trade executed on its platform generates revenue for the NSE, and trading volumes have grown rapidly.
It also earns exceptionally high profits, even though its revenues are directly affected by trading volumes which can swing quite sharply.
As it readies for a listing, Jio is now positioning itself as more than just a telecom company.
It wants to be seen as a homegrown digital and AI infrastructure behemoth through partnerships with Nvidia and Meta to develop data centres and large language models trained on Indian languages.
It is also moving from a phase of "market share acquisition to monetisation" driven by tariff increases, higher data use, and upgrades to postpaid plans according to Elara Securities - a signal that the country's consumer market is becoming more sophisticated.
"Together, Jio and NSE represent the twin pillars of India's new economy," Azeez said.
Their simultaneous offerings could help draw global capital, as these companies "broaden the investable universe" and provide foreign money with opportunities to invest in sectors that are central to India's growth story going ahead.
Millions of Indians took to investing in stocks and mutual funds during the pandemic.
But whether the issues alone will be enough to "turn the tide for foreign investors to come back in droves to the Indian markets, remains uncertain", says Singh.
The Indian markets have been among the worst performing globally over the last year, as foreign investors pulled billions of dollars from the country in search of higher returns in the US and AI-driven opportunities elsewhere in Asia.
A crashing currency has only worsened the country's appeal.
Many small investors have also burnt money in recent years, investing in flashy share sales of companies like PayTM and LIC - the country's biggest financial behemoths. And dozens of high-profile IPOs are now trading at below their listing prices.
All of this has shaken investor confidence.
The pricing of these issues is what will ultimately determine whether their business success can translate into shareholder returns.
"Even high-quality businesses can deliver disappointing returns if they are issued at overly aggressive valuations," said Azeez.
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