Update
It appears that the “proper” folks at Wimbledon have elected to exclude tennis players from Russia and Belarus.
Tennis players from Russia and Belarus will not be allowed to compete at Wimbledon this year due to Russia’s “unjustified” invasion of Ukraine, the All England Club announced Wednesday.
At the same time, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which represents professional male players, has come out opposing this action:
The ATP issued a statement Wednesday expressing its disagreement with the All England Club’s decision. “We believe that today’s unilateral decision by Wimbledon and the LTA to exclude players from Russia and Belarus from this year’s British grass-court swing is unfair and has the potential to set a damaging precedent for the game.”
April 2, 2022
This situation with Russia, and their attack on the former Soviet satellite country of Ukraine, is rather interesting. This is the first time that the “world” has responded to warfare by attempting to cancel a country and all of its citizens. I am certainly not condoning the belligerent Russian incursion into another sovereign country, however, this boycotting of everything Russian is highly illogical.
Since Columbus, Ohio was working at one point to cancel its namesake, I suppose we should not be surprised about the irrational use of boycotts. However, I saw it as rather odd that many North American institutions were canceling or boycotting notable Russians — living or deceased. For example, a Canadian symphony orchestra canceled the performance of a Russian Piano prodigy. Meanwhile, an American symphony orchestra canceled the performance of music from from Russian composer, Tchaikovsky (who died in 1893).
Most recently, I attended a major international tennis tournament in Florida where all the players are listed along with the flag of their country of citizenship. I noticed that the Russian players were listed with blank flags… Now, in the latest turn of events towards ridiculousness, the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament in England is insisting that the second-ranked tennis player in the world, Russian Danil Medvedev, will be banned from the tournament unless he signs a declaration stating that he does not support Russian president Vladimir Putin.
If these are indeed peaceful ways to avoid deadly warfare, I suppose that is a positive. However, this notion of canceling everything associated with Russia just doesn’t seen quite right.