Ranking points? Do me a favour

IN UKRAINE, there are tales of massacre, butchery and war crimes but in SW19 — for God’s sake, won’t somebody think of the ranking points? Is that really the best that the ATP and WTA have got? A threat to remove ranking status from Wimbledon, and other tournaments in Britain, if they continue to bar players from Russia and Belarus? This, apparently, was the worst-case scenario for the All England Club, apart from a boycott. So boycott. See if we care. It’s tennis. We did without it last year, we’ll probably get by this year, too. It’s not like we are hunkering down in a disused power station, while Vladimir Putin rains missiles on our children. It’s not as if anyone has bombed Putney flat. Who knows where we will be next year but, chances are, this is a response by the tournament organisers to the normalisation of Russian inclusion at this very moment. Wimbledon want no part of it, and more power to them. If this means losing ranking points, we could have it worse. All of us.