PARIS (AP) — Retired 14-time champion Rafael Nadal will receive a tribute at the French Open on Court Philippe-Chatrier on May 25, the tournament’s opening day.
“Rafa has left his mark on the history of the French Open in so many ways, that’s why a tribute ceremony will be held in his honor,” French Open director Amélie Mauresmo said on Thursday. “We want the tribute to be special, exceptional. We want it to be a surprise for everyone.”
Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam champion who retired in November, already has a statue rising in the alleys of the clay court Grand Slam. He will also feature in an exhibition in the tournament museum and lend his voice to the official French Open trailer.
“We wanted to do the tribute last year, to be transparent, but he refused at the time,” Mauresmo said. “He wasn’t sure that it was his last Roland Garros. Now that he is retired, he is happy to receive it.”
Nadal holds the record for the most French Open titles with 14. His last appearance at the tournament was in 2024 when he lost to Alexander Zverev in the first round.
“Rafael Nadal and Roland Garros are inseparable. We have a strong history together,” said Gilles Moretton, president of the French Tennis Federation. “Amélie and I went to see him not long ago because we wanted to do something important for him. We still had some frustration from last year.”
Organizers also plan to build on the success of the 2024 Paris Olympics by setting up a fan zone with giant screens showing matches. Located at Place de la Concorde in central Paris, the venue will be free and open to up to 5,000 fans.
“We saw an incredible atmosphere last summer in Paris. We plan on surfing on this success,” Mauresmo said.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
FILE - a view of center court Philippe Chatrier during the semifinal match of the French Open tennis tournament between Poland's Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff of the U.S. at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Thursday, June 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft and Meta Platforms are driving Wall Street higher on Thursday after reporting profits for the start of the year that were even bigger than analysts expected.
The S&P 500 was up 0.9% in midday trading and heading for an eighth straight gain, which would be its longest winning streak since August. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 205 points, or 0.5%, as of noon Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.9% higher.
Microsoft jumped 8.6% after the software giant said strength in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence businesses drove its overall revenue up 13% from a year earlier.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, also topped analysts’ targets for revenue and profit in the latest quarter. It said AI tools helped boost its advertising revenue, and its stock climbed 4.8%.
The two are some of the most influential stocks within the S&P 500 and other indexes because of their massive sizes, but they weren't alone. CVS Health, Carrier Global and a bevy of other companies also joined the stream of better-than-expected profit reports that have helped steady Wall Street over the last week. The S&P 500 is back to within 8.5% of its record set earlier this year, after briefly dropping nearly 20% below the mark.
Still, plenty of uncertainty remains about whether President Donald Trump’s trade war will force the economy into a recession. And even though companies have been reporting better profits for the first three months of the year than analysts expected, many CEOs are remaining cautious about the rest of the year.
General Motors cut its forecast for profit in 2025, for example. It said it’s assuming it will feel a hit of $4 billion to $5 billion because of tariffs. GM’s stock nevertheless rose 0.4%. The automaker said it expects to offset at least 30% of the tariff impact.
McDonald’s fell 0.6% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, even though its profit was slightly above forecasts. An important underlying measure of performance at its U.S. restaurants had its worst decline since 2020, when COVID shuttered the global economy, and McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said consumers “are grappling with uncertainty.”
McDonald's joined Chipotle and other restaurant chains that have seen customers get more cautious amid all the unknowns about the economy and inflation that’s still higher than many people would like.
The uncertainty has already shown up in surveys of consumers, which say pessimism is shooting higher about where the economy heading. On Thursday, a couple reports about the economy came in mixed, following up on several recent updates that have suggested it’s weaker than expected.
The first of the reports said more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than economists had forecast, setting the stage for a more comprehensive report on the job market arriving Friday.
But a later update said U.S. manufacturing activity was better last month than economists had feared, though it still contracted again.
The fear on Wall Street is for a possible worst-case scenario called “stagflation,” where the economy stagnates yet inflation remains high. It’s hated because the Federal Reserve has no good tools to fix both problems at the same time. If the Fed were to try to help one problem by adjusting interest rates, it would likely make the other worse.
Some encouraging news on inflation arrived Wednesday, when a report said that the measure of inflation the Fed likes to use slowed in March.
In the bond market, Treasury yields swiveled following Thursday's economic reports. The yield on the 10-year Treasury initially fell below 4.13% after the worse-than-expected update on joblessness. But it later trimmed its losses following the better-than-expected report on manufacturing and rallied to 4.21%. That's up from 4.17% late Wednesday.
In stock markets abroad, trading was closed in many countries for May Day, or international Labor Day holidays.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.1% after the Bank of Japan kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, as many investors expected.
Hopes that Trump may eventually roll back some of his tariffs after reaching trade deals with other countries also helped to support markets.
A social media blog by China’s state broadcaster claimed that the Trump administration has been seeking contact with the world's second largest economy through multiple channels to start negotiations over tariffs.
AP Writers Yuri Kageyama, Matt Ott and Didi Tang contributed.
Trader Sal Suarino, right, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Michael Pistillo, right, and trader Timothy Nick work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist James Denaro works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader John Bishop works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Dylan Halvorsan, right, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Michael Milano works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Vincent Napolitano works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Bobby Charmak, center, works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Matthew Cheslock, left, and Anthony Confusione work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Bobby Charmak, right, works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Stephen Naughton works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Patrick McKeon, center, works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Anthony Matesic works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
