Angelique Kerber stuns Serena Williams to win Australian Open

• From the sectionTennis

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Angelique Kerber wins Australian Open title

Australian Open
Venue: Melbourne Park Dates: 18-31 January
Coverage: Live radio and text commentary on all Andy Murray matches, plus highlights on BBC TV and BBC Sport website. Listen to Tennis Breakfast on Radio 5 live sports extra and the BBC Sport website from 07:00 GMT.

Germany's Angelique Kerber stunned world number one Serena Williams in three sets to win her first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open.

Kerber, seeded seventh, won a thrilling final 6-4 3-6 6-4 at Melbourne Park.

The 28-year-old is the first German to win a major singles title since Steffi Graf at the 1999 French Open.

Williams, 34, was beaten for just the fifth time in 26 Grand Slam finals, and the American missed the chance to tie Graf's open-era record of 22 titles.

Kerber, who saved a match point in her first-round win over Misaki Doi, will move up to number two in the world rankings.

Kerber blunts Williams' power game

Kerber had won just one of six previous matches against Williams and was making her Grand Slam final debut, but she was the better player over two hours and eight minutes on Rod Laver Arena.

She led Williams in the ace count until the latter stages, limiting her to just seven overall, while the American racked up 46 errors to just 13 by Kerber.

Williams made 23 mistakes in the first set alone - sparking memories of her desperately nervous display in losing to Roberta Vinci at the US Open last September - and Kerber took full advantage to claim it after 39 minutes.

However, the defending champion cut her error count to just five in the second set and claimed it thanks to a single break in game four.

Kerber twice moved ahead in the decider and a stunning sixth game saw the German produce two fine drop shots and win a breathtaking 19-stroke rally to cling on to her serve and edge closer to victory.

Nerves took hold and she was broken while serving for the match, but she launched into the Williams serve once again and clinched the title when the world number one sent a volley long.

Kerber becomes the first German since Steffi Graf in 1999 to win a Grand Slam title

'A dream come true'

Kerber said afterwards that being able to say she was a Grand Slam champion "sounds crazy".

"It's my dream come. I worked for this my whole life," said the German.

"It's been such an up and down two weeks, I was match point down in the first round and had one foot in the plane to Germany.

"Now I have beaten Serena and won the championship. I have so many emotions, so many thoughts, but all of them good ones."

Defending men's champion Novak Djokovic, who will play Andy Murray in Sunday's men's final, tweeted his congratulations to Kerber

Williams was gracious in defeat, telling Kerber: "Angie, congratulations. You deserve this and I'm so happy for you. I really hope you enjoy this moment."

The runner-up added: "Would I give my performance an A? No, but this is all I could produce.

"I'm not a robot. I do the best that I can. I try to win every point but realistically I can't. Maybe someone else can."

Match analysis

BBC tennis correspondent Russell Fuller

Kerber had to save a match point just to avoid losing in the first round, and she proved her mental toughness again when the title was on the line.

Having pressured Williams into a string of unforced errors in the first set by chasing down virtually every ball, she mixed true grit with sheer class as she broke for a 4-2 lead in the deciding set. Two glorious drop shots were the highlight of a ten minute plus game of five deuces, in which Williams saved 4, but not 5, break points.

Nerves can be harder to deal with as the years tick by, especially when your opponent makes just 13 unforced errors over 2 hours and 8 minutes, and the pressure told when Williams served to stay in the match for a second time.

Kerber will rise to world number 2 and is as well placed as anyone, on the evidence of today, to further frustrate Williams' bid for a record equalling 22nd Grand Slam title.

Proton beam cancer therapy 'effective with fewer side effects'

 
• From the sectionHealth

Image copyrightAP

Image captionAshya King left the UK to have proton beam therapy in the Czech Republic

A cancer treatment at the centre of an NHS controversy in 2014 causes fewer side effects in children than conventional radiotherapy, according to new research.

The study, published in The Lancet Oncology, suggests proton beam therapy is as effective as other treatments.

Researchers looked at 59 patients aged between three and 21 from 2003 to 2009.

In 2014 the parents of Ashya King took him out of hospital in Hampshire to get the treatment abroad.

Their actions led to a police operation to find them.

Ashya, who was five at the time of his treatment, is now cancer free, his family said last year.

'Acceptable toxicity'

All the patients who took part in the study, led by Dr Torunn Yock from the Massachusetts General Hospital in the US, had the most common kind of malignant brain tumour in children, known as medulloblastoma.

After five years, their survival rate was similar to that of patients treated with conventional X-ray radiotherapy, but there were fewer side effects to the heart and lungs, the study found.

Dr Yock told BBC Radio 5 live: "The major finding is that proton therapy is as effective as photon therapy [conventional X-ray radiotherapy] in curing these patients and what is also very exciting is that it is maintaining these high rates of cure but doing so with less late toxicity, which has dramatic quality of life improvements."

The paper said: "Proton radiotherapy resulted in acceptable toxicity and had similar survival outcomes to those noted with conventional radiotherapy, suggesting that the use of the treatment may be an alternative to photon-based treatments."

What is proton beam therapy?

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Media captionAnimated graphic comparing traditional radiation treatment with proton beam therapy.

It uses charged particles instead of X-rays to deliver radiotherapy for cancer patients.

The treatment allows high-energy protons to be targeted directly at a tumour, reducing the dose to surrounding tissues and organs.

In general, it gives fewer side effects compared with high-energy X-ray treatments.

It can be used to treat spinal cord tumours, sarcomas near the spine or brain, prostate cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer and some children's cancers.

Sources: NHS England, Cancer Research UK

Independent expert Prof Gillies McKenna, who is the head of the department of oncology at the University of Oxford, said the research suggested that the "side effects are indeed dramatically reduced" with proton beam therapy.

"There were no side effects seen in the heart and lungs and gastrointestinal tract, which are almost always seen with X-rays, and no secondary cancers were seen at a time when we would have expected to see them in X-ray treated patients," he added.

But Dr Kieran Breen, from Brain Tumour Research, said there was still more research needed into the treatment.

"In the longer term, we need to try and understand what effects it will have on people and there are many other forms of tumour both in the brain and in other parts of the body," he said.

Proton beam therapy is currently only available in the UK to treat eye cancers, but patients with other forms of cancer can apply for NHS funding for the therapy abroad.

The first proton beam facility in the UK is due to be made available in Newport by the end of 2016, as a "result of direct investment by the Welsh government," according to a Welsh Assembly spokesman.

The Department of Health has said that from April 2018 the treatment will be offered to up to 1,500 cancer patients at hospitals in London and Manchester, following investment worth £250m.

Image copyrightScience Photo Library

Two years ago a dispute about the use of the treatment prompted Brett and Naghemeh King, of Southsea, Hampshire, to remove their son Ashya from a hospital in Southampton against his doctors' advice.

The parents wanted their five-year-old to undergo proton beam therapy in Prague, which had not been recommended by his care team in Southampton.

Their actions sparked an international police manhunt, and the couple were later arrested and held in a prison in Madrid.

They were eventually released and Ashya's therapy took place, with the NHS later agreeing to pay for it.

A spokesman for University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, said that medulloblastoma was not currently on the list of tumours approved for this treatment on the NHS.

"However, we welcome any update to the existing clinical evidence on cancer treatments and will follow any expansion of the current national criteria," a spokesman added.

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Key events for Ashya's treatment

• Ashya had surgery for a medulloblastoma brain tumour at Southampton General Hospital in July 2014
• His parents, Brett and Naghemeh, removed him from the hospital on 28 August and sparked a manhunt when they travelled to Spain
• They were arrested but later released and Ashya was flown to Prague, Czech Republic, for proton beam treatment
• He had six weeks of proton beam therapy, which cost between £60,000 and £65,000, according to the treatment centre, and which was paid for by the NHS
• Ashya returned to hospital in Spain
• In March 2015, Brett King announced his son was free of cancer

Madaya: 'Another 16 starve to death' in besieged Syrian town 

• From the sectionMiddle East

Image copyrightReuters

Image captionResidents in Madaya have been waiting to be evacuated

Syria's war

• Civilians under siege in Syria
• International system has failed Syria
• Syria's civilians living a 'life worse than death'
• Syria: The story of the conflict

Another 16 people have starved to death in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya since UN aid convoys reached it earlier this month, according to charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The charity says there are also 33 people in danger of dying.

Brice de la Vingne, MSF operations director, said the situation was "totally unacceptable" when people "should have been evacuated weeks ago".

MSF previously said 30 people died of starvation in the town late last year.

Earlier in January, two emergency convoys of food and aid supplies were delivered to Madaya, where up to 40,000 people are believed to be trapped in appalling conditions.

Read more:

Syria's civilians under siege

Lyse Doucet: People living a 'life worse than death'

Syria: The story of the conflict

The report comes as talks on ending the Syrian conflict take place in Geneva.

Negotiators representing Syria's main opposition groups are expected to arrive later on Saturday, after earlier boycotting the launch of the peace talks. Aid deliveries to besieged towns is a key demand from opposition groups.

The UN says some 400,000 people are trapped and in need of emergency assistance in 15 locations in Syria as as part of sieges imposed by the Syrian government-led coalition, as well as by opposition groups.

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Media captionSome people in Madaya said they were being forced to eat cats and grass

Madaya, in the mountains 25km (15 miles) north-west of Damascus, has been besieged for six months by government forces and their allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

Humanitarian agencies have called for hundreds of people to be evacuatedimmediately for medical treatment.

However, MSF said residents were continuing to die as government coalition forces prevented sick people leaving, and supplies of food and medical supplies getting in.

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March 2015: Foah and Kefraya in Idlib province are besieged by rebel groups and the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, with an estimated 12,500 trapped.

July 2015: Madaya, near Damascus, is besieged by government forces and their allies in Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement.

September 2015: The situation in Foah and Kefraya worsens after the fall of a nearby government air base, where helicopters had been able to land with food supplies. Reports emerge of people eating grass to survive.

October 2015: UN delivers one month's supply of food rations for 20,000 people in Madaya.

December 2015: Dozens of wounded civilians and fighters evacuated from Foah, Kefraya, Zabadani and Madaya. Reports begin to emerge of people starving in Madaya.

January 2016: UN says it has received credible reports of people dying of starvation in Madaya

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"It is totally unacceptable that people continue to die from starvation, and that critical medical cases remain in the town when they should have been evacuated weeks ago," said MSF's director of operations.

The 16 recent deaths were reported by health workers supported by MSF in the town. No doctors are present to help, the organisation said.

Previously MSF said almost 30 people had died of starvation at a clinic in Madaya between 1 December and early January.

However, Hezbollah denies there have been any deaths in the town and accuses rebel leaders of preventing people leaving.

More than 40 lorries delivered aid to Madaya earlier this month - including rice, vegetable oil, flour, sugar and salt - for the first time since October.

The UN hopes to deliver further aid to Madaya as well as two northern towns besieged by Sunni rebels, Foah and Kefraya.

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What's happening in Syria?

More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in almost five years of conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a brutal civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State.

Why are civilians under siege?

All parties to the conflict are using siege warfare, encircling populated areas, preventing civilians from leaving and blocking humanitarian access in an attempt to force opponents to surrender. Shortages of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel have led to malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups.

Where are the sieges?

Government forces are besieging various locations in the eastern Ghouta area, outside Damascus, as well as the capital's western suburb of Darayya and the nearby mountain towns of Zabadani and Madaya. Rebel forces have encircled the villages of Foah and Kefraya in the northern province of Idlib, while IS militants are besieging government-held areas in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour.