Washington, DC – The Pentagon has announced that United States military strikes against Iran set back the country’s nuclear programme by one to two years, an assessment that follows President Donald Trump’s claims that the programme was “obliterated”.
Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said on Wednesday that the three Iranian nuclear facilities targeted by Washington were destroyed, echoing the president’s remarks. He praised the strikes as a “bold operation”.
“We have degraded their programme by one to two years at least,” Parnell told reporters. “Intel assessments inside the department assess that. ”
Since the US sent a group of B-2 stealth bombers to Iran on June 21, Trump has consistently lashed out at any suggestions that the attacks did not wreck the country’s nuclear facilities.
He has maintained that Iran’s nuclear programme has been “obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before”.
An initial US intelligence assessment, leaked to several media outlets last month, said the strikes failed to destroy key components of Iran’s nuclear programme and only delayed its work by months.
For its part, Tehran has been coy about providing details about the state of its nuclear sites.
Some Iranian officials have said that the facilities sustained significant damage from US and Israeli attacks. But Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said last week that Trump had “exaggerated” the impact of the strikes.
There has been no independent assessment of the aftermath of the US attacks, which came as part of a 12-day war between Israel and Iran. Visual analyses via satellite images cannot fully capture the scope of the damage at the underground sites, especially the country’s largest enrichment facility, Fordow.
Another persistent mystery is the location and state of the stockpiles containing Iran’s highly enriched uranium.
Iran’s nuclear agency and regulators in neighbouring states have said they did not detect a spike in radioactivity after the bombings, as might be expected from such strikes.
But Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), did not rule out that the containers holding the uranium may have been damaged in the attacks.
“We don’t know where this material could be or if part of it could have been under the attack during those 12 days,” Grossi told CBS News last week.
“So some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved. ”
Satellite images showed trucks moving out of Fordow before the US strikes.
Grossi also said that Iran could be enriching uranium again in a “matter of months”. Enrichment is the process of enhancing the purity of radioactive uranium atoms to produce nuclear fuel.
The facilities targeted in the US strikes had been under constant IAEA surveillance. But now, Iran’s nuclear programme is in the dark, away from the scrutiny of international inspectors.
After the war, the Iranian parliament passed a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA, citing the agency’s failure to condemn the US and Israeli attacks on the country’s nuclear facilities.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on “installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations”.
Before the war started on June 13, Tehran claimed to have obtained Israeli documents that show that the IAEA was passing off information to Israel about Iran’s nuclear programme – allegations that the agency denied.
Earlier on Wednesday, the US State Department called on Iran to allow the IAEA access to its nuclear programme.
“It is … unacceptable that Iran chose to suspend cooperation with the IAEA at a time when it has a window of opportunity to reverse course and choose a path of peace and prosperity,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
Israel launched a massive attack against Iran on June 13 without direct provocation, claiming that it was preemptively targeting Iran’s push towards a nuclear weapon.
Tehran denies seeking a nuclear bomb. Israel, meanwhile, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Israeli air strikes during the conflict killed hundreds of Iranian civilians, including nuclear scientists and their family members, as well as top military officials.
Iran responded with barrages of missiles that left widespread destruction and killed 29 people in Israel.
Ten days into the war, the US joined the Israeli campaign and bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Tehran, in turn, launched a missile strike against a US air base in Qatar, an attack that resulted in no casualties.
Hours later, Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Officials in both countries have described the outcome of the war as a “historic victory”.
The trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has culminated in a verdict, after more than seven weeks of intense media scrutiny and testimony about drug-fuelled celebrity sex parties.
But beneath the salacious details, advocates say there are critical takeaways about how sexual violence is understood – and sometimes tolerated – within the criminal justice system.
On Wednesday, a federal jury in the United States delivered a split decision.
It found Combs guilty of transporting individuals to engage in prostitution, but not guilty of the weightier question of whether he engaged in sex trafficking or racketeering for flying girlfriends and sex workers to the parties he organised.
Prosecutors had described Combs’s activity as a “criminal enterprise” in which he leveraged money, power and physical violence to force former girlfriends into abusive circumstances.
The split ruling has, in turn, divided opinion about what the case means for the beleaguered #MeToo movement, which emerged in the early 2010s to bring accountability to cases of sexual violence.
For Emma Katz, a domestic abuse expert, the jury’s decision indicates there are still yawning gaps in public understanding about sexual violence. That understanding, she maintains, is necessary to assess the behaviours that accompany long-term abuse and coercion, particularly between intimate partners.
“I think a ruling like this would be a good news kind of day for perpetrators,” she told Al Jazeera. “The jury seems to have concluded you can be a victim, a survivor, whose boss beats you in hotel corridors and has control over your life, but that you’re not being coerced by him. ”
“So much of what perpetrators do that enables them to get away with their abuse – and what makes their abuse so horrific and so sustained – has not been acknowledged and has disappeared from the picture in this verdict,” she added.
A ‘botched’ decision
How the jury arrived at its decision remains unknown.
But prosecutors had been tasked with proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Combs used “force, fraud, or coercion” to compel his girlfriends into commercial sex acts.
The case was centred largely on the testimony of two women: singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura Fine and a woman identified only by the pseudonym “Jane”. Both were identified as former girlfriends of Combs.
The prosecution argued that Combs had used his financial influence, violence and threats of blackmail to coerce Ventura and the other woman to perform sex acts during parties known as “freak-offs”.
The evidence included surveillance video from March 2016 of Combs beating Ventura in a hotel hallway and then dragging her away. Ventura herself gave harrowing testimony at the trial, saying she felt “trapped” in a cycle of abuse.
She explained that cycle involved regular threats and violence, including Combs “stomping” her on the face in a 2009 incident.
But the defence’s arguments throughout the proceedings appear to have swayed the jury, according to Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor.
The defence blatantly admitted that Combs was abusive towards Ventura, as the surveillance footage had shown. But Combs’s lawyers maintained there was no evidence he coerced Ventura into committing sexual acts against her will.
The Los Angeles Times even quoted defence lawyer Teny Geragos as saying, “Domestic violence is not sex trafficking. ”
“The big question in the case is: If you’re sexually abused or assaulted, why did you stay with your abuser for more than a decade? ” Rahmani said. “I understand the psychology of abuse, but jurors don’t necessarily buy it”.
Rahmani broadly assessed that prosecutors “botched” the sex-trafficking portion of the case.
That included how prosecutors approached a series of messages from Ventura that indicated affection for Combs and active participation in sexual situations, which Rahmani noted were not revealed until cross-examination by the defence.
According to experts like Katz, such behaviour can be common in abusive relationships, in which an abuser expects a “performance of happiness” to avoid physical, financial or psychological repercussions.
“It would never surprise me to see a victim survivor sending loving texts and enthusiastic texts to somebody who they said was abusing them, because that’s all part and parcel of domestic abuse,” Katz said.
‘Stain on criminal justice’
From Katz’s perspective, the verdict underscores the reality of what has happened since the #MeToo movement emerged.
While #MeToo helped workplace harassment become more widely understood, the general public still struggles with the complexities of intimate partner violence.
“I think that the public has shown more willingness to consider how somebody might be harmed by an acquaintance, a work colleague, somebody who’s hiring them for a job,” Katz said.
By contrast, intimate partner abuse consistently raises victim-blaming questions like: Why did someone remain with an abusive partner?
“There’s still a lot of stigma around when you chose this person,” Katz explained. The thought process, she added, is often: “It can’t have been that bad if you stayed in the relationship. ”
But domestic violence experts point to complicating, often unseen factors. Abuse can have psychological consequences, and abusers often attempt to wield power over their victims.
Children, housing and financial circumstances can also prevent survivors from leaving and seeking help. People experiencing such abuse might also fear an escalation of the violence – or retaliation against loved ones – should they leave.
Experts, however, say it can be hard to illustrate those fears in court. Still, on Wednesday, Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, struck a positive tone about the outcome of the Combs trial.
In a statement, he said Ventura’s legal team was “pleased” with the verdict and that her testimony helped to assure that Combs has “finally been held responsible for two federal crimes”.
“He still faces substantial jail time,” Wigdor noted. The prostitution transportation charges each carry a maximum of 10 years.
Several advocacy groups also praised Ventura and others for coming forward with their experiences.
The verdict “shows that even when power tries to silence truth, survivors push it into the light,” Lift Our Voices, a workplace advocacy group, wrote on the social media platform X. “The #MeToo movement hasn’t waned, it’s grown stronger. ”
Fatima Goss Graves, head of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), echoed that Ventura’s and Jane’s testimonies were accomplishments in and of themselves.
“Coming forward and seeking accountability took extraordinary bravery and no jury can take that away,” she said.
Others were less optimistic about the jury’s split verdict. Arisha Hatch, interim executive director of UltraViolet, a gender-justice advocacy organisation, called the verdict a “decisive moment for our justice system” – and not in a good way.
Bangkok, Thailand – Even at the Nana intersection, a pulsating mecca of this megacity’s seamy nightlife scene, the Wonderland cannabis shop is hard to miss.
Its sprawling, ruby-pink signboard screams across the busy crossroads, broadcasting the wares inside with the help of neon lights twisted into luminescent marijuana leaves.
It is Saturday afternoon, and business should be good. But it is not.
Just days earlier, Thailand’s government imposed new rules sharply curbing the sale of cannabis, only three years after decriminalising the plant with much fanfare and unleashing a billion-dollar business in the process.
All sales of cannabis buds must now be accompanied by a doctor’s prescription – a stipulation aimed at choking off the recreational market, the mainstay of most of the thousands of dispensaries that now dot the country.
Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin has also announced his intention to place the plant back on the country’s controlled narcotics list within 45 days, putting it in the company of cocaine, heroin and meth.
Nanuephat Kittichaibawan, an assistant manager at Wonderland, said his shop used to serve 10 or more customers an hour most afternoons.
Now, even with an in-house doctor to write prescriptions on the spot, “it is just one or two”, he told Al Jazeera.
“It is more complicated than it used to be, and for some people it will be too much,” he added.
Like many in the business, he worries the new rules may even force him to shut down, putting him out of work.
“If we follow the rules, we could [have to] close,” he said. “I do worry about that. A lot of people have this as their main job, and they need it to survive. ”
A bar displays a sign prohibiting marijuana smoking in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 27, 2025 [Zsombor Peter/Al Jazeera]
Faris Pitsuwan, who owns five dispensaries on some of Thailand’s most popular tourist islands, including Ko Phi Phi Don and Phuket, is worried, too.
“Yesterday, I could not sell anything,” he told Al Jazeera. “I hope my business will survive, but too soon to say. ”
While announcing the policy U-turn last week, Somsak said the new rules would help contain Thailand’s cannabis industry to the medical market, as intended when a previous administration, and a different health minister, decriminalised the plant in 2022.
“The policy must return to its original goal of controlling cannabis for medical use only,” government spokesman Jirayu Houngsub said.
Since a new administration took over in 2023, the government has blamed decriminalisation for a wave of problems, including a spike in overdoses among children and adolescents and increased smuggling to countries where cannabis is still illegal.
A survey by the government’s National Institute of Development Administration last year found that three in four Thais strongly or moderately agreed with putting cannabis back on the narcotics list.
Smith Srisont, president of Thailand’s Association of Forensic Physicians, has been urging the government to relist cannabis from the beginning, mostly because of the health risks.
Smith notes that more than one study has found a fivefold to sixfold spike in cannabis-related health problems among children and adolescents since legalisation.
Although shops have been forbidden from selling to anyone below the age of 20, Smith says it has been too hard to enforce because the job falls mostly on health officers, rather than police, and Thailand does not have enough.
“So, they can’t … look at every shop,” he told Al Jazeera, but “if cannabis is [treated more] like methamphetamine … it will be … better because the police can [then get] involved” right away.
Many farmers and shop owners, though, say the blowback from legalising cannabis has been exaggerated, and scapegoated by the leading Pheu Thai Party to punish the Bhumjaithai Party, which abandoned the ruling coalition two weeks ago over Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s alleged bungling of a border dispute with Cambodia.
Somsak has denied the claim.
Bhumjaithai had led the push to decriminalise cannabis and was tussling with Pheu Thai for control of the powerful Ministry of the Interior in the weeks leading up to its split from the coalition.
A woman walks past the Chopaka dispensary in Bangkok, Thailand, in June 2022 [Zsombor Peter/Al Jazeera]
“As soon as one party steps down from the coalition, this happens. The timing just could not be any more perfect,” Chokwan Chopaka, who opened a dispensary along Bangkok’s bustling Sukhumvit Boulevard soon after Thailand legalised cannabis, told Al Jazeera.
“I understand that cannabis does create issues,” she said, “[but] I feel that those issues could have been at least mitigated if the government were actually enforcing the rules that [did] exist in the first place. ”
Chokwan said she had to shutter her shop a few months ago because she could no longer both follow those rules and compete with other dispensaries in the neighbourhood that were getting away with breaking them.
She expects that most dispensaries will end up closing if the new rules are enforced diligently, many of them before recouping the investments they made to get up and running.
“A lot of people are very stressed out. We’re talking about people that are borrowing money into this. This is their last breath, their last lot of savings, because our economy hasn’t been well,” Chokwan said.
The Thai government said in May that the national economy may grow by as little as 1. 3 percent this year, dragged down in part by slumping tourist arrivals.
The government has blamed the freewheeling cannabis scene of the past three years for putting some tourists off Thailand – another reason, it argues, to tighten the reins.
Shah, on his second trip to Thailand from India in the past year, said the new rules could do more harm than good by pushing tourists like him and his friend away.
“One of the reasons that we do come here is so that we can smoke good weed,” Shah, who asked to be referred to by his last name only, told Al Jazeera.
Having landed in Bangkok only hours earlier, Shah and his friend were leaving a Nana neighbourhood dispensary with their purchase.
A self-avowed recreational user, Shah said the shop wrote him a prescription with few questions and no fuss.
But if the government does get serious about enforcing the new rules, he added, “maybe I’ll think twice next time and go somewhere else. ”
An employee at the Four Twenty dispensary prepares a marijuana cigarette for a customer in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2022 [Zsombor Peter/Al Jazeera]
Cannabis farmers are fretting about the new rules, too.
To keep selling their buds to local shops, every farm will soon need a Good Agriculture and Collection Practice (GACP) certificate from the government.
It certifies that the farm has met certain quality control standards.
Chokwan, who also leads the Writing Thailand’s Cannabis Future Network, a cannabis advocacy group, said only about 100 cannabis farms across the country currently have GACP certification.
Getting farms ready and tested can be expensive, she said, while forcing it on all farmers will weed out thousands of “little guys”, leaving the largest farms and the corporations backing them to dominate the market.
Coming in at less than 300 square metres (360 square yards), under banks of LED lights inside an unassuming beige building on the outskirts of Bangkok, the Thai Kush cannabis farm easily qualifies as one of the little guys.
Owner Vara Thongsiri said the farm has been supplying shops across the country since 2022. His main gripe with the new rules is how suddenly they came down.
“When you announce it and your announcement is effective immediately, how does a farm adapt that quickly? It is impossible. They didn’t even give us a chance,” he told Al Jazeera.
Vara said he would apply for the certificate nonetheless and was confident the quality of his buds would help his farm survive even in a smaller, medical-cannabis-only marketplace, depending on how long the application takes.
“My farm is a working farm. We harvest every month … If the process takes three months to six months, how am I going to last if I can’t sell the product I have? ” he said.
“Because a farm can’t last if it can’t sell. ”
Chokwan Chopaka, in glasses, hands out cannabis buds at a protest, urging the government not to re-criminalise cannabis in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2022 [Zsombor Peter/Al Jazeera]
Rattapon Sanrak, a cannabis farmer and shop owner, is crunching the numbers on the new regulations as well.
His small farm in the country’s fertile northeast supplies his two Highland Cafe dispensaries in Bangkok, including one in the heart of the city’s Khao San quarter, a warren of bars, clubs and budget accommodations catering to backpackers.
“I could stay open, but as [per] my calculation, it may not [be] worth the business. It’s not feasible any more due to the regulations, the rental and other costs,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It’s not worth the money to invest. ”
Rattapon and others believe the government could have avoided the latest policy whiplash by passing a comprehensive cannabis control bill either before decriminalisation or soon after.
Like others critical of the government’s approach, he blames political brinkmanship between Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai for failing to do so.
Proponents of such a bill say it could have set different rules for farms based on their size, helping smaller growers stay in business, and better regulations to help head off the problems the government is complaining about now.
Although a bill has been drafted, Somsak has said he has no intention of pushing it forward, insisting that placing the plant back on the narcotics list was the best way to control it.
The Writing Thailand’s Cannabis Future Network plans to hold a protest in front of the Ministry of Public Health on Monday in hopes of changing the minister’s mind.
Rattapon said he and hundreds of other farmers and shop owners also plan on filing a class action lawsuit against the government over the new rules.
Medical cannabis products are displayed at the Bangkok Integrative Medicine Clinic in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2022 [Zsombor Peter/Al Jazeera]
In the meantime, Rattapon and others warn, the government’s attempt at confining cannabis to the medical market will not simply make the recreational supply chain vanish.
Rattapon said many producers, having poured in millions of dollars and put thousands of people to work, will go underground, where they will be even harder to control.
“Imagine you have a company, you hire 10 people, you invest 2 million baht [$61,630] for that, you’re operating your business, and then one day they say that you cannot sell it any more. And in the pipeline, you have 100 kilograms coming. What would you do? ” he said.
“They will go underground. ”
Faris, the dispensary owner, agreed.
He said many of the shops and farms that rely on the recreational market will close under the new rules.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief has urged China to end restrictions on the export of rare earth elements and warned that Chinese firms’ support for Russia’s war in Ukraine posed a serious threat to European security.
The statement from Kaja Kallas came on Wednesday after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Brussels.
The EU is seeking to improve its relations with China amid United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war, which has rocked major trading powers.
But instead of improvements, a trade spat has only deepened between Brussels and Beijing over alleged unfair practices by China. The 27-nation bloc is also railing against the flow of vital tech to Russia’s military through China.
On Wednesday in her meeting with Wang, Kallas “called on China to put an end to its distortive practices, including its restrictions on rare earths exports, which pose significant risks to European companies and endanger the reliability of global supply chains”, a statement from her office said.
On trade, Kallas urged “concrete solutions to rebalance the economic relationship, level the playing field and improve reciprocity in market access”.
She also “highlighted the serious threat Chinese companies’ support for Russia’s illegal war poses to European security”.
China says it does not provide military support to Russia for the war in Ukraine. But European officials say Chinese companies provide many of the vital components for Russian drones and other weapons used in Ukraine.
Kallas called on China “to immediately cease all material support that sustains Russia’s military industrial complex” and support “a full and unconditional ceasefire” and a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
Wednesday’s discussions were to lay the groundwork for a summit between EU and Chinese leaders on July 24 and 25. European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel to China for the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.
Earlier in the day, Wang also met Costa as part of those preparations.
In that meeting, Wang called on both sides to respect each other’s core interests and increase mutual understanding, adding that “unilateralism and acts of bullying have seriously undermined the international order and rules”, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, shakes hands with European Council President Antonio Costa during a meeting in Brussels [Francois Walschaerts/AFP]
Besides discussions on improving bilateral ties, Kallas and Wang also discussed the situation in Iran.
While both leaders welcomed the de-escalation between Israel and Iran, Kallas said she had “urged Iran to immediately restart negotiations on its nuclear programme and that Europe stands ready to facilitate talks”, according to a statement from her office.
Kallas and Wang also “agreed on the importance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime”.
The United States will place a lower-than-promised 20 percent tariff on many Vietnamese exports, President Donald Trump has said, cooling tensions with its 10th-biggest trading partner days before he could raise levies on most imports.
Vietnamese goods will now face a 20 percent tariff, and any transshipments from third countries through Vietnam will face a 40 percent levy, Trump said, announcing the trade deal on Wednesday. Vietnam would accept US products with a zero percent tariff, he added.
“It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Trump said on Truth Social after speaking with Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam.
Trump’s announcement comes just days before a July 9 deadline he set to resolve negotiations before he ramps up tariffs on most imports, one of the Republican’s signature economic policies.
Under that plan announced in April, US importers of Vietnamese goods would have had to pay a 46 percent tariff.
The Vietnamese government said in a statement that the two countries agreed on a joint statement about a trade framework. It did not confirm the specific tariff levels mentioned by Trump.
Vietnam would commit to “providing preferential market access for US goods, including large-engine cars”, the government in Hanoi said.
A deal between the two countries would be a political boost for Trump, whose team has struggled to quickly close deals with Washington’s biggest trading partners ahead of the deadline.
While the administration has teased a forthcoming deal with India, truces reached earlier with the United Kingdom and China were limited in scope. Talks with Japan, the sixth-largest trading partner for the US and closest ally in Asia, appeared deadlocked.
“Vietnam has been very keen to get out from under this,’’ said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “This is forcing a smaller country to eat it, basically. We can do that. It’s the big countries that everybody’s keeping their eyes on. ’’
She said she doubts that Trump will be able to impose such a lopsided agreement on big trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.
The US is Vietnam’s largest export market, and the two countries’ growing economic, diplomatic and military ties are a hedge against Washington’s biggest strategic rival, China. Vietnam has worked to retain close relations with both superpowers.
Shares of major US apparel and sportswear makers, including Nike, Under Armour and North Face maker VF Corp, rose on the news.
Lam also asked Trump for the US to recognise Vietnam as a market economy and remove restrictions on the exports of high-tech products to the country, Vietnam said. Those changes have long been sought by Hanoi and dismissed by Washington.
The White House and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade did not respond to requests for additional comment.
Growing trade ties
Since Trump imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods in his 2017-2021 term, US trade with Vietnam has exploded.
Since 2018, Vietnam’s exports have gone up nearly threefold, from less than $50bn that year to about $137bn in 2024, Census Bureau data shows. US exports to Vietnam are up only about 30 percent in that time – to just over $13bn last year from less than $10bn in 2018.
Washington complains that Chinese goods have been dodging higher US tariffs by transiting through Vietnam.
William Reinsch, a former US trade official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the significance of the transshipment crackdown will depend on “how the term is defined and enforced. Some transshipment is outright fraud – simply changing the label; some is a legitimate substantial transformation in Vietnam into a new product; and there is a lot in between. Enforcement is always complicated”.
Details were scarce, and it was not immediately clear how any transshipment provision aimed at products largely made in China and then finished in Vietnam would be implemented.
Trump announced a wave of tariffs for countries around the world on April 2, before pausing the implementation of most duties until July 9. More than a dozen countries are actively negotiating with the Trump administration to avoid a steep spike in tariffs on their exports.
The UK accepted a 10 percent US tariff on many goods, including autos, in exchange for special access for aircraft engines and British beef.
Like the agreement struck with the UK in May, the one with Vietnam resembles more a framework than a finalised trade pact.
Carlos Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka and the end of London’s tropical heatwave have ensured that a sense of normality has returned to the lawns of Wimbledon on day three of the tournament after two sweat-soaked days of shocks.
A stream of big names – including Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev – have crashed and burned in the oven-like temperatures of the first round.
So when Alcaraz walked onto Centre Court on Wednesday in his quest for a third successive title against British qualifier Oliver Tarvet, the thought surely lurked somewhere in his mind that he could be the fall guy in the tournament’s greatest upset.
The 21-year-old second seed was not at his best, but after saving three break points in a nervy opening service game against a college student ranked 733rd in the world, he asserted his authority to win 6-1, 6-4, 6-4.
Tarvet in action against Alcaraz in the second round [Tim Clayton/Getty Images]
Sabalenka tops Bouzkova
Earlier on Centre Court, the women’s top seed, Sabalenka, battled to a 7-6(4), 6-4 win against Czech Marie Bouzkova.
“Honestly, it is sad to see so many upsets in the tournament in both draws, women’s and men’s,” Sabalenka, who is bidding for her first Wimbledon title, said.
“Honestly, I’m just trying to focus on myself. ”
Australian Open champion Madison Keys, the sixth seed, also made it safely into round three, beating Olga Danilovic 6-4, 6-2 while unseeded four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka eased past Czech doubles specialist Katerina Siniakova 6-3, 6-2.
Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus during day three of the Wimbledon Championships [Marleen Fouchier/BSR Agency via Getty Images]
Lower temperatures did not mean an end to the surprises entirely, though, as American world number 12 Frances Tiafoe became the 14th of the 32 men’s seeds to depart, going down 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 to Cameron Norrie, one of seven British players in second-round singles action on day three.
Sonay Kartal led the home charge by beating Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova 6-2, 6-2 to book her place in the last 32 for the second year in succession.
There was disappointment, though, for Britain’s Katie Boulter, who served 14 double faults as she went down 6-7(9), 6-2, 6-1 to 101st-ranked Solana Sierra, the Argentinian who lost in qualifying but has seized her lucky loser spot with both hands.
Alcaraz congratulates Tarvet
Alcaraz, bidding to do the French Open-Wimbledon double for the second successive year, needed five sets to get past Italian veteran Fabio Fognini in the first round and set up an intriguing clash with Tarvet.
Tarvet, who plays on the United States collegiate circuit for the University of San Diego, said he believed he could beat anyone, even Alcaraz, after winning his Grand Slam debut match against fellow qualifier Leandro Riedi of Switzerland on Monday.
He was clearly not overawed at sharing a court with a five-time Grand Slam champion, and had he taken any of the eight break points he earned in the first set, it could have been closer.
Tarvet, left, at the net with Alcaraz on July 2, 2025 in London, England [Peter van den Berg/ISI Photos via Getty Images]
Alcaraz proved to be the better player on Wednesday, though, as he moved through the gears when required to keep an eager Tarvet under control.
Just as the Spaniard did in his first round when going to the aid of a female spectator suffering in the heat, Alcaraz again endeared himself to the Centre Court crowd.
“First of all, I have to give a big congratulations to Oliver. It’s his second match on the tour. I just loved his game to be honest, the level he played,” Alcaraz said.
Play on the courts without roofs was delayed for two hours by light morning rain, but once the clouds rolled away, the place to be for those without show-court tickets was Court 12 for Brazilian teenager Joao Fonseca’s second-round match against American Jenson Brooksby.
The 18-year-old is widely tipped as a future challenger to Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, and he showed exactly why during a 6-2, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 win that was celebrated by a large contingent of exuberant Brazilians.
Raducanu sets up Sabalenka tie
Facing a rival who has already experienced the joys of winning Wimbledon did not faze Emma Raducanu as the Briton rode out the “crazy pressure” heaped on her slender shoulders to defeat Marketa Vondrousova 6-3, 6-3 in the second round.
In a battle between two Grand Slam champions, both unseeded after years of trials and tribulations, Czech Vondrousova would have fancied her chances of knocking out Britain’s big hope.
After all, the 2023 champion had arrived at the All England Club fresh from winning the grass-court title in Berlin with victories over Australian Open champion Madison Keys and world number one Sabalenka en route.
However, it was Raducanu whose game sparkled on Centre Court as she produced the kind of carefree, yet potent shots that had carried her to the US Open title in 2021.
“Today I played really, really well. There were some points that I have no idea how I turned around,” a delighted Raducanu told the crowd.
“I knew playing Marketa was going to be an incredibly difficult match. She has won this tournament, which is a huge achievement. I’m really pleased with how I played my game the whole way through. ”
Emma Raducanu of Britain runs up the court against Marketa Vondrousova of Czechia during their women’s singles second round match [Peter van den Berg/ISI Photos via Getty Images]
An eye-popping running backhand passing shot winner handed her the break for a 4-2 lead in the first set.
Although a sloppy service game gave Vondrousova the break back in the next game, the British number one wasted little time in regaining the advantage for a 5-3 lead after a forehand error from the Czech.
Moments later, thundering roars from the Centre Court crowd could be heard around the All England Club and beyond as Vondrousova surrendered the set with yet another miscued forehand.
Clearly unsettled, the errors started piling up for Vondrousova, who had previously admitted that she did not envy the “crazy pressure” Raducanu had to deal with day in and day out after becoming the first British woman to win a major in 44 years.
