Some Wimbledon Comments as End Nears

Although my eyes aren't glued to the television, I've been generally keeping up with this year's edition of the Wimbledon tennis tournament taking place in England.  It's easy to do, since their afternoons are our mornings and, wouldn't you know it, my mornings happen to be free! It's reached the finals for the women's singles and the semis for the men's.  After the big stink made after the Azarenka-Svitolina match when both of them avoided the customary good-spirited interaction at the net, I bet a lot of folks were banking on a repeat of this scenario if Elina Svitolina, from Ukraine, faced up against Aryna Sabalenka, who is from Belarus, one of the aggressor countries against Svitolina's homeland.  As it turned out, both Svitolina and Sabalenka lost out in their respective semifinal matches against Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur, who will play for the title on Saturday.  The men's semifinals tomorrow pit Novak Djokovic against Jannik Sinner, and Daniil Medvedev against Carlos Alcaraz.  I had written a few days ago that I wasn't faulting Svitolina for saying in advance she wouldn't be speaking to anyone from Belarus or Russia, but while I sympathize with her, I believe that if each of us is an ambassador of our own countries, then we have a choice to make.  Either we can say it's war and march in lock step with our national leadership or we can choose, at least on a personal level, to promote peace and mutual respect.  In times of war, though, peacemakers are often severely criticized as sabotaging their country's resolve...even sometimes branded as traitors.  As for Sabalenka's loss earlier today, I'm a bit sad although I do like Jabeur, too...she's got to be the favorite in the next match.  I feel similarly about Daniil Medvedev...he's from Russia but, along with Sabalenka, never seemed to garner much fan support even before dictator Putin decided to invade and devastate a peaceful nation for territorial gain.  I think it's because they're both introverts, very intense with their game but not exactly the most outgoing of folks and pretty expressive when they get frustrated...I can relate to that!  Well, I can't root for Sabalenka anymore, but Medvedev is still alive and kicking.  It's gonna be fun watching it all unfold tomorrow morning on ESPN...