Category: 4. Technology

In the dynamic world of tennis, the Kudermetova sisters—Veronika and Polina—shine brightly, not by coincidence but through dedication, resilience, and familial bond. Born into a sports‑obsessed household, they’ve both carved out remarkable paths that speak to their perseverance and drive. Despite the inevitable comparisons between a former top‑10 star and her rising sibling, each has embraced her unique journey. Veronika, already a household name in professional tennis, has paved the way with her powerful serve and impressive doubles triumphs. Polina, the younger sister, is fearlessly creating her own legacy, blending raw talent with mental fortitude. Their story isn’t just one of sibling rivalry—it’s a testament to shared dreams, unwavering support, and the power of lifting each other. In this article, we’ll explore their family roots, highlight Polina’s accomplishments, delve into Veronika’s personal life, and trace the meteoric rise of these two inspiring athletes.

For the Kudermetova sisters, sports runs in the blood

Image via Instagram/ Polina Kudermetova

The foundation of Veronika and Polina’s success lies in their deeply athletic household. Their father, Eduard Kudermetov, was a celebrated ice‑hockey player—twice a Russian national champion—who instilled the values of discipline and grit in his daughters . While information on their mother remains private, it’s clear that both young women benefited from a childhood immersed in sport. Born in Kazan in 1997, Veronika began her tennis journey at age eight and later moved to Moscow to train at the renowned CSKA club. Polina, born June 4, 2003, followed suit, hitting her first tennis ball at seven and embracing the family ethos of athletic excellence.

Polina Kudermetova’s rise to spotlight

The younger Kudermetova has steadily ascended through the ranks with poise and promise. As of April 14, 2025, she reached a career‑high WTA singles ranking of No. 54, later hovering around the mid‑50s by June . She has earned nearly US $891,000 in prize money through consistent performances, including a quarterfinal at the 2023 Korea Open.Polina’s résumé boasts nine ITF singles titles and two doubles titles, evidencing a strong foundation built on the ITF circuit. She made her Grand Slam main‑draw debut at the Australian Open in 2023 and 2025, and her breakthrough came early in 2025, as she stunned top‑10 player Daria Kasatkina en route to a WTA‑500 quarterfinal in Brisbane. Her first top‑10 victory (Kasatkina ranked No. 9) came at that event, highlighting her mental resilience and shot‑making prowess.Known for a two‑handed backhand and a hard‑court preference, Polina plays with maturity beyond her years under coach Ravshan Sultanov. Her tenacity was on full display in Seoul at a WTA‑500 event, where she battled back from down match points to reach the quarters, supported every step of the way by her sister and mother.

Veronika Kudermetova’s legacy in the tennis courts

The elder sister has long been a force in women’s tennis. Born April 24, 1997, Veronika reached a career‑high ranking of No. 9 in singles (October 2022) and No. 2 in doubles (June 2022). She has won two WTA singles titles, including the 2021 Charleston Open, and remains a doubles powerhouse with eight WTA titles, three at the WTA‑1000 level. Veronika’s most notable doubles achievement came when she and Elise Mertens lifted the 2022 WTA Finals trophy, besting Krejcikova and Siniakova . As a singles player, she reached the quarterfinals of the 2022 French Open and the 2021 Wimbledon doubles final.Off the court, Veronika is married to her longtime coach, Sergei Demekhine, a former pro player. The pairing began professionally in 2012 and shifted to romance by 2015; they married in 2017. Despite a 13‑year age gap, their relationship remains strong—Veronika admitted in 2020 that familial and cultural values informed their bond, and that she had sheer admiration for him as her coach long before romance blossomed.

The Kudermetova sisters’ journey to spotlight and victory

From early training sessions to shared locker‑room moments on tour, the Kudermetova sisters have supported and inspired one another. Veronika’s success served as both pathway and motivator for Polina, who has consistently been present at Veronika’s matches—even across continents.Their dual quarterfinal showing at the 2024 Korea Open caught headlines: Veronika defeated Samsonova, while Polina secured her own upset win against Ekaterina Alexandrova. When Veronika lost in a late‑season slump, she credited Polina’s deeper advancement as a wake‑up call. The first official WTA main‑tour sisters‑versus match took place at the 2025 Madrid Open, where Veronika prevailed 6‑2, 6‑2—an emotional yet respectful showdown. Despite it being a rivalry by draw, each has handled the challenge with sportsmanship and mutual pride.A shared philosophy—which Veronika often emphasizes—involves focusing on “point by point” and staying mentally tough, advice Polina creditably applied to her own comeback wins. Their journey, branded by incremental achievements and tangible proof of talent, is one of relentless dedication.The story of Veronika and Polina Kudermetova is more than that of two talented athletes—it’s a heartfelt chronicle of sisterhood, legacy, and relentless pursuit of excellence. With roots planted in a sports‑centric family, they have each forged their own path: Veronika with disciplined skill and a decorated career, Polina with courage and a flame of promise. United by shared values and mutual support, the sisters have shown that success is sweetest when celebrated together. As Polina rises and Veronika continues to thrive, their legacy is destined not only in trophies won, but in the inspiration they provide for future generations of athletes.Also read: Is Iga Swiatek’s patterned misbehavior a subtle indication to a bigger problem?

SAVE $900: As of July 1, the 77-inch LG C5 OLED evo TV is on sale for $2,796.99 at Amazon. This is 24% off its list price of $3,696.99 and marks its lowest price yet.

Ahead of Prime Day, Amazon has been dropping some excellent early deals for shoppers. If you’ve been looking for a new TV, we’ve found a deal on the 77-inch LG C5 OLED evo TV that’s worth jumping on if you want a newer release that’ll transform your living room into a mini movie theater.

Normally, the 77-inch LG C5 OLED evo TV is listed for $3,696.99 at Amazon, but you can add it to your shopping cart for 24% off at $2,796.99 right now. This marks its lowest-ever price according to price tracker camelcamelcamel, so there’s truly no better time than now to pick it up.

The LG C5 is the latest release in the C-series lineup from LG, revealed at CES earlier this year. Alongside its huge 77-inch screen size, the display itself offers up 4K resolution and OLED technology that breathes new life into what you’re watching with vibrant colors and crisp details. It also comes with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, which are an extra treat for the eyes and ears, and for the movie fans, it features a Filmmaker Mode that allows you to watch a movie with the picture settings the director intended.

There’s plenty for gamers to enjoy as well. The LG C5 boasts a 0.1ms response time and up to 144Hz refresh rate so you can experience your favorite games smooth and lag-free. On top of that, this TV also features NVIDIA G-Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium and VRR (variable refresh rate) to help display your games even better.

Don’t miss out on this fantastic early Prime Day deal on the 77-inch LG C5 OLED evo TV at Amazon.

If you’re hoping to check out more TV deals during the Prime Day sale event, make sure to mark your calendar for July 8 when it all begins. And to learn more about what to expect from this year’s sale event and more of our favorite early deals, have a look at our guide on everything you need to know about Amazon Prime Day 2025.

When it comes time to choose a new gaming monitor, Samsung is one company that should always be on your shortlist. The 27-inch G30D is one example of a monitor that has plenty of gamer-friendly features, and right now you can put one on your desk for the low, low price of just $130.

If that price seems cheap, that’s because it is. This monitor would normally sell for up to $230, and this price is only a dollar more than the lowest ever. That means that this limited-time deal is one that you won’t want to miss — so order your new monitor now to make sure that you don’t.

This 27-inch monitor is the perfect size to offer plenty of screen real estate without being too big, and it allows for some impressive features as well. This model has a 180Hz refresh rate and support for AMD FreeSync, so you can expect a buttery-smooth experience. Resolution-wise, the G30D has an FHD pixel setup at 1,920 x 1,080.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

Samsung’s monitor includes an eye-saving mode that reduces blue light to help keep your eyes happy, and the three-sided borderless design means this display looks great, too.

Gamers will also enjoy a special virtual aim point feature that puts a crosshair in the middle of the screen so you can more accurately get those all-important head shots.

In terms of connectivity, this monitor supports HDMI and DisplayPort, so you shouldn’t have any issues hooking up your gear.

Why this deal matters

A good gaming monitor can really level up your experience, and this monitor definitely fits the bill. At just $130, we’ve barely seen it any cheaper, making this the kind of deal you don’t want to miss. We don’t know when it will end, so keep that in mind when planning your purchase.

Anyone who longs for the styling and analog goodness of Italian sports cars from the 1960s – but not their sketchy reliability and general unwieldiness – will be interested to learn about Mignatta and its Rina Speedster. Mignatta, a startup based in the Piedmont region of Italy, first provided photos of the Rina in May, and now the company has announced the public debut of the car.

The Rina combines the gorgeous styling of something like a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa in a modern package that includes carbon-fiber construction and an all-aluminum V8. Anyone who wants to see it in person will have their first chance at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, which runs July 10-13 in the UK The car won’t just be on static display, either. Mignatta confirmed it will make exhibition runs.

Big-Cube V8 In A Lightweight Package

Thanks to carbon-fiber construction (plus some Kevlar) for both the central tub and the body, the Rina’s dry weight is claimed by the company to be just over 2,200 pounds. The carbon tub was developed with help from Mignatta’s parent company, JM, which specializes in building carbon-fiber parts for marine applications. According to the company, it helps deliver torsional rigidity in the Rina superior to that of supercars like the Lamborghini Aventador.

Completing the chassis are tubular subframes front and rear, and suspension with overlapping arms and adjustable dampers. Mounted at each corner is a forged wheel, with the front pair measuring 19 inches in diameter and the rear measuring 20 inches. Housed within are six-piston brake calipers at the front and four-piston units at the rear, clamping down on steel rotors as standard or carbon-ceramic rotors as an option.

This light, ultra-stiff chassis is then combined with a 5.0-liter V8 – an all-aluminum design with double overhead cams. A power output hasn’t been mentioned yet. Mignatta also hasn’t confirmed whether the engine is Ford’s popular Coyote V8 from cars like the Mustang, though the company said the engine has been worked over by Italtecnica Engineering.

The engine sits in a front-midship position and drives the rear wheels via a six-speed manual transmission and limited-slip differential. The transmission, which includes a gated shifter, is mounted at the rear for improved weight distribution. Mignatta claims the balance is an ideal 50:50 front and rear.

No Two Examples Will Be the Same

Only 30 examples are destined for production, and if any build slots are left, Mignatta will likely be happy to accept deposits following the Goodwood debut. The company has previously announced a price tag of $290,000. This price tag will likely inflate quickly once some options are selected.

Because of the hand-built nature of the cars, Mignatta is promising a lot of customizability. The leather looks like it’s the same used in Italian shoes, while all the controls – including the gauge cluster, with real gauges, mind you – have a 1990s-like exotic look to them, as though they were leftovers from an early Pagani Zonda or something.

Related

Pagani Will Never Tire Of Making New* Zondas

This is a renewed version of the 26-year-old nameplate, a one-off made by Pagani Unico.

There’s no infotainment system dominating the center stack, either. Curiously, the company has chosen to mount the speedometer there. Underneath are some physical controls which, like the gauges, are all machined from aluminum.

Mignatta isn’t the first company to attempt a sports car combining 1960s-era styling with modern mechanicals. A few years back, a startup by the name of Jannarelly showed a speedster with styling similar to the Rina. Jannarelly wasn’t successful, but some other companies have been. One of them is historic British firm AC Cars, which recently launched a modern take on the AC Cobra.

Sources: Mignatta

Nvidia has tweaked the latest version of DLSS so that it eats less of your graphics card memory than before, potentially giving your Nvidia GeForce graphics card a little more room to breathe. The change comes with the release of the new Nvidia 310.3.0 Software Development Kit (SDK), which the company says reduces the VRAM demands of DLSS when using upscaling and ray tracing.

Even at lower resolutions, games with high-resolution textures and ray tracing can push VRAM usage beyond the capacities of many otherwise great GPUs, as we found in our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 review, with some games really pushing the limits of 8GB of memory. This is where the new Nvidia 310.3.0 SDK can lend a helping hand, reducing the VRAM usage of the new DLSS transformer model by 20%. This potentially frees up additional VRAM to give the GPU a little more headroom before performance falls off a cliff.

In our tests, as demonstrated in our RTX 5090 review, we’ve found that the new transformer model of Nvidia DLSS Super Resolution has a massive impact on image quality and stability compared to the old CNN model. Game graphics look much sharper and less blurry, and there’s much less noise and ghosting around moving objects too.

However, enabling the transformer model also results in a slight performance hit compared to the CNN model, and it also uses more VRAM, with Nvidia’s “ballpark” figures in the SDK documentation (as spotted by Videocardz) showing that a game running at 4K would need 387.21MB of VRAM for the DLSS transformer, compared to just 199.65MB for the older CNN model.

There’s still a VRAM penalty to pay for the transformer model with the new SDK, but Nvidia says that footprint has now been reduced to 307.37MB, a drop of over 20% compared to using the older 310.2.0 SDK, and the drops at other resolutions are all in the same 20% area.

That’s still a fair amount of memory to allocate just to upscaling, of course, especially when you free up over 100MB by using the CNN model at 4K instead, but it’s good to see the figures coming down. Hopefully, Nvidia is indeed planning a refresh of its Blackwell GPUs with more VRAM, as seen in the latest rumors about the RTX 5070 Super, as well as the RTX 5080 Super.

If you’re thinking of upgrading your GPU, check out our guide to buying the best graphics card, where we run you through all our favorite options to suit a range of budgets.

If you head on over to our vibrant community Discord server, you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers. You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides.

Imagine this: a MacBook running on iPhone hardware. It sounds like a far-fetched idea at first glance, but it could soon become a reality.

Also: Every iPhone model that can be updated to iOS 26 (and which ones don’t support it)

Notable Apple insider Ming-Chi Kuo took to X and wrote a short post claiming that Apple is working on a “more-affordable MacBook” that’ll run an A18 Pro chipset instead of an M-series processor like other recent MacBooks. The A18 Pro is the same type of hardware found in the iPhone 16 Pro.

Early clues

Hints of this device first appeared in July 2024 when MacRumors analyst Aaron Perris discovered various upcoming iPhone, Mac, and iPad models after scouring through macOS 15.1. Much of the unearthed information was not revealed at the time. However, MacRumors has suggested that one particular MacBook, Mac17,1, is the mystery new computer that runs on the A18 Pro.

Details are scarce, but Kuo dropped some interesting tidbits. The A18 Pro-based MacBook will have a 13-inch display, like the MacBook Air, and be available in several colors, including silver, blue, pink, and yellow. The device is expected to enter mass production sometime in late 2025 to early 2026, where it’s “projected to account for five to seven million” MacBook units.

Potential price

A MacBook running on the A18 Pro chipset is an interesting concept, especially as the line between smartphones and laptops continues to blur. The iPhone 16 Pro is an inherently powerful machine. It’s lightning fast and capable of supporting a robust ecosystem of AI features. A computer with the Pro’s hardware could potentially work as a decent midrange laptop.

The M4 MacBook Air is already fairly affordable at $849 on Amazon. At the time of writing, the price for the rumoured A18 Pro-based MacBook is unknown. However, imagine paying $600 or $700 for a MacBook — maybe less. It’s a cool idea, and it certainly has me excited. If we learn more about Apple’s apparent project, you’ll be the first to know.

Also: Your Apple Watch can see your Google calendar now

In addition to the laptop, Kuo claimed that Apple is also working on a pair of smart glasses set to release in 2027. This device will reportedly function similarly to Meta Ray-Bans, with no display functionality. However, he suggested the glasses will provide audio playback, record video, and support “AI environmental sensing,” “Multiple material options,” will be available for the “frames and temples.”

Looking for the next best product? Get expert reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends.

Meet Kristina Romanova — model, wanderluster, and CEO and Creative Director of Aman Essentials, the extension of Aman Resorts. Here, she spearheads everything from luxury skincare, Italian leather bags, fragrances and all-round, the finer accessories you could want for a serene escape — Aman style, of course.

Kristina says, “As a mom of two and a business owner I see self-care as an essential part of my wellbeing. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated or take too long, but here are some non-negotiables that I have developed over the years with a busy lifestyle and consistent traveling, and I find them deeply nourishing physically, mentally and spiritually.”

Movement

Find a type of exercise/movement that you enjoy – yoga, pilates, hiking, swimming. I love doing yoga and breath work routines in the morning, ideally in nature. It sets the right energy for the day, makes me stress-resistant and wakes up my joints, lymphatic system and strengthens the immune system. On days when I need some extra encouragement, I try to find motivation even in the smallest of things – create a space that helps get you in the right mindset or something as simple as putting on a cute outfit that makes you feel good. Our latest Aman Tennis Club collection definitely motivated me to go back on court!

Stay Hydrated

I think we all know the importance of daily water intake by now, but as with everything else, consistency is the key. I like to carry with me a reusable bottle, any easy reminder to sip water throughout the day. On hot days or when I’m feeling under the weather I like to add electrolytes to my water as they are charged with minerals important for maintaining optimal body functions. SILA by Novak Djokovic, Aman’s Global Wellness Advisor supplements are a great additive and enhance enhances physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

No Phone An Hour Before Bed

That’s the hardest rule for me to follow but it really helps to improve the quality of sleep. It is important to give yourself permission to disconnect. I put my phone out of reach and indulge myself in reading or a short meditation – this is the best way for me to calm my nervous system down before falling asleep.

Adopt A Simple Skincare Routine

When it comes to my skincare routine, I’m a big advocate of a “skinimalism” approach. Less is more. I love the Aman Essential Skin line, which is perfect for multifunctional daily use and covers all the major needs – cleansing, toning and hydrating one’s skin. I enjoy the ritual of it, the light textures and the instant glow that it gives. All the products were developed and produced in Japan and have traditional Japanese skincare ingredients including Indigo and Rice Bran extract, which protect from everyday environmental stressors.

Use Sunscreen

UV rays are really damaging for skin, so using sunscreen daily is an absolute must! Even if you are not directly exposed to the sun or it’s a gloomy day – put sunscreen on. Your skin will thank you years later. Very important and sometimes overlooked, but, wearing sunscreen on day flights is key. We are closer to the sun and exposed to significantly more UV radiation – up to two times more.

Take A Weekly Banya, Steam Room Or Sauna

Take the opportunity to get into a steam room, sauna or Banya once a week. It is an amazing natural detox and immunity boost. The Banya in particular does it for me. It is the most intense and deep experience of the three – make sure to have a good and experienced therapist! Aside from the physical and mental health benefits to it, this can also be a great way to spend time with your friends and family. The Sunday Banya tradition is the best way to wrap up the week for me!

We’re giving you more time to celebrate the brightest minds in photonics.

Due to high demand and a flurry of last-minute interest, we’re extending the nomination window for The Photonics100 until Monday 14 July at 17:00 (BST).

That means you now have a few extra days to put forward the innovators, disruptors and rising stars shaping the future of our industry. Whether it’s a colleague making waves in the lab, a founder transforming research into real-world impact, or a leader championing change—this is your chance to give them the recognition they deserve.

Now in its fourth year, The Photonics100 is the go-to list for identifying and celebrating the most influential people in photonics today. From startups to research institutions, established companies to fresh talent—we want to hear about them all.

Already started a nomination but didn’t hit submit? Now’s the time. Know someone who should be on the list but hasn’t yet been nominated? Don’t let this moment pass.

The final deadline is Monday 14 July at 17:00. No further extensions will be granted.

Submit your nomination now and help us shine a light on the people driving photonics forward.