U.S. Open in Tennis: 1st Round on ESPN Monday

The U.S. Open professional tennis tournament, one of the sport's four annual grand slam events, will be showing first round matches from Flushing Meadows in New York City on Monday.  ESPN and ESPN2 are showing much of the action, so if you're into other sports, then starting next week I'm afraid tennis is going to temporarily crowd you out on these channels.  Although I'm looking forward to watching this year's action...in 2021 I was at home fulltime recovering from open heart surgery and saw much of the tournament...I'm more than a little confused by the bans going on in '22.  Earlier on, at the Australian Open, Novak Djokovic, who provided much of the interest at last year's U.S. Open, was expelled from that country because he wouldn't take the Covid-19 vaccine...even though the pandemic was raging in late 2021 as well (and on a deadlier level).  Then the French Open, the second grand slam tournament, took place in the spring and he was back on the court.  As was the case in July's Wimbledon in England...but because of the Russian/Belarus invasion of Ukraine that began late February, players from those countries were banned from playing although they were allowed to play in France: following everything so far?  Now we're back in the good ol' USA and players from Russia and Belarus are welcomed with open arms...but now it's Djokovic who once again can't play...although he could in 2021 when Covid was raging much worse!  Apart from the war and Covid bans, throw into the mix the fact that tennis on this high, demanding level tends to produce fragile athletes prone to long-term injuries and you never know who among the elite players will be well enough to participate: Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal? Dunno. Just give me a match and two good players...I don't care who they are or where they came from...