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    Saudi Arabia, Creator of LIV Golf, Casts Its Eye on Women’s Tennis

    The kingdom shook up the PGA Tour with the creation of the LIV Golf series. Now it is pushing to secure a WTA Tour event.With the golf world already divided over Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a powerful force in the game, another major sport is contending with whether to do business with the kingdom.This time it’s women’s tennis, which pulled out of China last year over concerns for the welfare of a player who accused a Chinese vice premier of sexual assault and later disappeared from sight.Saudi Arabia has approached the Women’s Tennis Association about hosting an event, possibly the Tour Finals, but the WTA has not entertained the prospect of a tournament there in any formal fashion.Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA, declined to be interviewed for this article, but a spokeswoman, Amy Binder, confirmed Saudi Arabia’s interest, saying in a statement, “As a global organization, we are appreciative of inquiries received from anywhere in the world and we look seriously at what each opportunity may bring.”In recent weeks, professional golf has been upended by the start of the LIV Golf Invitational series, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and is paying $4 million prizes to tournament winners, along with participation fees reportedly as high as $200 million. Players like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson who have left the PGA Tour and joined LIV Golf have been accused by other players of helping the kingdom to “sportswash” its human rights abuses, among them the 2018 government-sponsored killing of the Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi.Saudi Arabia’s interest in tennis was first reported by The Telegraph in Britain.The kingdom in recent years has invested heavily in sports and cultural events as part of a broader effort to project a new image around the world. The women’s tennis tour would be likely to face questions if it staged events in Saudi Arabia, where women’s rights have been curtailed and women gained the right to drive only in 2018. (Saudi Arabia has staged professional women’s golf events, hosting official Ladies European Tour stops each of the last three years.)Peng Shuai of China at the 2019 Australian Open.Edgar Su/ReutersWhen the veteran Chinese player Peng Shuai disappeared last year, Simon demanded a full investigation of her allegations. Peng eventually reappeared, but when Chinese authorities did not allow Peng to meet independently with Simon and the WTA, Simon suspended all of the tour’s business in China, including its 10-year deal to hold the Tour Finals in Shenzen.It was a significant financial blow to the WTA. China had paid a record $14 million in prize money in 2019, the first year of the agreement. That was double the amount of prize money from 2018, when the WTA Finals finished its five-year run in Singapore. The WTA relocated the finals last year to Guadalajara, Mexico, which offered only $5 million in prize money and a drastically reduced payment for the right to host the event.WTA leaders have yet to announce the WTA Finals host city for 2022, and it remains a challenge, with the longer-term Shenzhen deal still in place, to find candidates interested in bidding for the Finals for just one year.Saudi Arabia, with its appetite for international sport and huge financial resources, fits the profile of a potential bidder.“They are interested in women’s sports, and they are interested in big events, so for sure,” said the Austrian businessman and tennis tournament promoter Peter-Michael Reichel.The WTA has held events in Arab countries, including Qatar and Dubai, for years. But Saudi Arabia has yet to secure an official tour event in men’s or women’s tennis despite making increasingly serious offers.Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were set to play an exhibition there in December 2018 but were put under pressure to cancel it after the assassination of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October of that year. The exhibition match was eventually called off with Nadal citing an ankle injury.Daniil Medvedev of Russia played at an event in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, in 2019.Fayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA year later, an eight-man tennis exhibition was played in Riyadh in December 2019 ahead of the start of the regular men’s tennis season. The Diriyah Tennis Cup featured the leading ATP players Daniil Medvedev of Russia, Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland and John Isner of the United States and was played in a temporary 15,000-seat stadium. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Turki al-Faisal, chairman of the Saudi General Sports Authority, called hosting the event “another watershed moment for the kingdom” and hit the ceremonial first serve.Reichel helped organize the 2019 exhibition through his company RBG. He said the exhibition had to be canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic but that the plan was to revive the event later this year and include a women’s exhibition tournament.“I’m very optimistic we can develop the tennis business there,” Reichel said in a telephone interview from London on Thursday.Reichel said he believes it’s appropriate for sports to do business with Saudi Arabia, which he said has advanced as a society since he first went there on business in 1983.“I was so positively surprised,” he said. “I was there many times. The international image is talking about the murder of Khashoggi and the driving licenses for women. This is what people know, and there is much more to be reported, I think.”Reichel’s company owns and operates the WTA tournament in Linz, Austria, and the ATP tournament in Hamburg, Germany. He is a member of the WTA board of directors and has been one of those lobbying for Saudi Arabia to have an official tour event. But for now, those efforts have fallen short. The ATP recently rebuffed a proposal that Reichel was involved in to relocate an existing event to Saudi Arabia.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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    Returning to Singles, Serena Williams Will Face an Unseeded Player

    After a year away from singles, she risked drawing the world’s No. 1, Iga Swiatek, in the first round. Instead, she will face a player ranked 113th.In her first singles match in a year, Serena Williams could have faced one of the new leaders of the game that she once dominated.As an unseeded wild card at Wimbledon, Williams could have been drawn to play No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has won six tournaments in a row. Or Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who is on the verge of breaking into the top 10 and just lost to Swiatek in the French Open final.But when Friday’s draw was done, Williams was spared an established threat in the first round. Instead, she will play Harmony Tan, an unseeded French 24-year-old who is ranked 113th and will be making her main-draw debut at Wimbledon.The match will almost certainly be played on Centre Court, where Williams has won seven Wimbledon singles titles, six women’s doubles titles and two Olympic gold medals when the All England Club staged the tennis event at the 2012 London Games.But though Tan will be stepping on to that famous patch of grass for the first time, Williams will also be in new territory. At age 40, she remains arguably the biggest star in women’s tennis (Naomi Osaka makes it a debate), but Williams has played very little tennis in the last three years and played none at all on tour for nearly a year until returning in Eastbourne this week for two doubles matches with Ons Jabeur.They won them both before Jabeur withdrew with a right knee injury as a precautionary move before Wimbledon, where unlike Williams, Jabeur is one of the leading favorites for the title despite never reaching a Grand Slam final.That is a reflection of Jabeur’s shotmaking talent and recent victory at the grass court tournament in Berlin, but it is also a reminder that the women’s game is in transition. The reigning Wimbledon women’s champion, Ashleigh Barty, sent shock waves through the sport by retiring in March at age 25, weary of the travel far from her home in Australia and lacking the drive to continue pushing for the biggest prizes.Iga Swiatek, celebrating her French Open victory, has won 35 straight matches going into Wimbledon.Thibault Camus/Associated PressSwiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland, has stepped convincingly into the gap, winning 35 straight matches, and she could make it 36 by defeating a Croatian qualifier, Jana Fett, in the first round of Wimbledon. But Swiatek has played little on grass at this early stage in her career and below her, the hierarchy on tour is constantly shifting.In winning her six straight titles, Swiatek beat six different players in the finals. Anett Kontaveit, seeded No. 2 at Wimbledon behind Swiatek, has lost in the first round in three of her last four tournaments and has not played a match on grass this season, attributing her recent struggles to her continuing recovery from Covid-19.This year’s Wimbledon, which begins Monday, will not offer a full-strength field for women or men. Wimbledon barred Russian and Belarusian players from competing, in part because of pressure from the British government after the invasion of Ukraine.The tours responded by stripping Wimbledon of ranking points for the first time, and despite extensive discussions, both sides held firm to their positions.Wimbledon has maintained its prize money at normal levels, and though there was speculation that players might skip the tournament because of the lack of points, that has not materialized. Of the highest ranked players, the only ones who will be absent are either injured, like Alexander Zverev, Leylah Fernandez and Osaka or barred, like Daniil Medvedev and Aryna Sabalenka.Wimbledon is the only major tennis tournament to bar the Russians and Belarusians, and the ban has excluded four of the top 40 men, including No. 1 Medvedev and No. 8 Andrey Rublev, both of Russia. But Novak Djokovic, who has won the last three editions of Wimbledon, and his longtime rival Rafael Nadal are both in the men’s field. So is Andy Murray, now unseeded and trying to recover from an abdominal injury after an encouraging run to the final on grass in Stuttgart.Roger Federer, an eight-time Wimbledon singles champion who is still recovering from knee surgery at age 40, will miss the tournament for the first time since 1997 (he won the boys title in 1998 before playing in the main draw in 1999).Djokovic, who has a good draw, will face Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in the first round. Nadal, playing Wimbledon for the first time since 2019, will face Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina. Murray, the British star, will face James Duckworth of Australia.Wimbledon’s ban has excluded six of the top 40 women, including No. 6 Sabalenka, a Belarusian who was a Wimbledon semifinalist last year; No. 20 Victoria Azarenka, a former No. 1; and No. 34 Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who was Serena Williams’s most recent opponent at Wimbledon.Sasnovich advanced last year when Williams retired in the opening set of their first-round match after reinjuring her right hamstring in a slip on the fresh grass on Centre Court. Partly in response, Wimbledon, for the first time, allowed players to train on Centre Court before the tournament to wear in the grass and improve the footing during the early rounds.Williams, who has played more at Wimbledon than anyone in the women’s field, already knows her way around the grass, but she has been increasingly prone to injuries and will now have to try to find form in a hurry.Williams will face the unseeded Harmony Tan of France, who is ranked 113th in the world, in the first round at Wimbledon.Miguel Sierra/EPA, via ShutterstockTan, despite her world ranking, has the tools to create some doubt and trouble. She is an effective counterpuncher who likes to change pace with slices and drop shots and could force Williams to dig low and move more than she might like at the beginning of her comeback.Williams, with her first-strike power and deep experience, certainly looks like the favorite, but if she gets past Tan, she will quickly run into clearer threats. She could face No. 32 seed Sara Sorribes Tormo, a tenacious Spaniard, in the second round and could then face No. 6 Karolina Pliskova, who lost to Barty in last year’s Wimbledon final. Williams has never played Tan or Sorribes, and she has split her four previous matches with Pliskova, losing to her in the semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Open and quarterfinals of the 2019 Australian Open.Advance past the third round and Williams could face Gauff for the first time, in a match that would certainly generate major interest. But it seems most premature to start talking about the fourth round when Williams has played no singles at all in a year. This is the second longest break of her remarkable career, ranking only behind the 13-month break she took after winning the 2017 Australian Open when she was already two months pregnant with her daughter, Olympia.She looked understandably rusty and slow off the mark in the early stages of her doubles matches with Jabeur in Eastbourne, but she soon found her timing and came up with some trademark first serves under duress in both victories. Her ball striking when in position was often solid, but the trick will be putting herself in prime position in singles, where there is so much more court to cover and the potential for extended rallies if Williams cannot dominate with her serve and full-cut returns.The new wave of women’s players, led by Swiatek, have adapted to the power and generate plenty of it themselves. A deep Williams run would be quite an achievement, but if there is any Grand Slam where she could achieve it with so little preparation, it would be Wimbledon. More

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    This Wimbledon Champion Never Had a Tennis Lesson

    Dick Savitt, the first Jewish player to win the English tournament, has spent his life helping other athletes, including Arthur Ashe. In 1951 Dick Savitt, a self-taught tennis player, stunned the world by winning both the Australian Open and Wimbledon, becoming the first Jewish champion of both vaunted tournaments.“Dick Savitt of Orange, N.J., who never took a tennis lesson, established himself as the world’s No. 1,” announced The New York Times after the Wimbledon win, one of the shortest finals ever played on Center Court at that time. The match (6-4, 6-4, 6-4) was over in 63 minutes.Mr. Savitt retired from major tournaments the following year. But he stayed committed to the sport, competing when he could and mentoring other athletes in New York City, where he has lived since the late 1950s. He has been in the same Manhattan apartment, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, since 1963. His home is full of trophies and coffee table books, like “100 Years of Wimbledon” and “Great Jews in Sports.”Bid Goswami, a close friend of Mr. Savitt’s who led the men’s tennis program at Columbia University for almost 40 years, said that tennis greats like Arthur Ashe and Don Budge would seek him out for play when they came to town. “Mr. Ashe used to talk about Dick’s ‘heavy shots,’” he said.Mr. Savitt, who won Wimbledon in 1951, center, keeps his trophies and mementos in his apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Carly Zavala for The New York Times; Central Press, via Getty ImagesWhen he wasn’t playing with tennis stars or coaching young athletes at Columbia, Mr. Savitt would teach the sport to his son, Bob Savitt, who went on to found the commercial real estate company Savitt Partners. The two ended up competing in father/son tournaments together.As Wimbledon gets underway in London, The New York Times caught up with Dick Savitt, now 95, Bob Savitt and Mr. Goswami about their thoughts on tennis, New York and Dick Savitt’s legacy. The following interview is an edited and condensed version of the conversation.What brought you to New York City?Dick Savitt (DS): In the 1950s I was working for an oil firm in Texas. There was no money in tennis back then, so everyone was an amateur. My company asked me to open a New York office, and that’s why I came.It can be hard to find courts here. Where did you play?DS: I played a lot in Central Park, and also on the clay courts on 96th Street. I used to know the guy who ran them, so he knew what time I was going to come, and he would save the court for me. I didn’t have to wait. A lot of people would watch me play. There are now waiting lists to play on the courts.Bob Savitt (BS): I played the most with my dad at a Midtown tennis club and also at this apartment building on 65th and Columbus that had one court. A good friend of my father’s had court time there every Saturday and Sunday. A lot of the great players came to play there, like Bjorn Borg.Who did your father play with?BS: He played with Vitas Gerulaitis and Arthur Ashe the most, but also Dick Stockton and other professionals when they were in the city.DS: Ashe was very organized. He knew where he was weak, and he wanted me to help him. The way it works in tennis is when you play with people, you figure out where your efforts should go. If you played with a guy who was a better volleyer than you, you knew you needed to work on your volley. I remember helping Ashe with his backhand. We would play at Columbia or in the park. Once in a while we got a few beers afterward.Bid Goswami (BG): Dick used to play with his son a lot. They used to play the father/son nationals and when they finally won in 1981 after two or three tries, Dick said, “This is bigger than me winning Wimbledon.”A backhand return during the Wimbledon semifinals in 1951.Central Press — Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesThe tennis center at Columbia University was named after you, Mr. Savitt. How did that come about?DS: I first met Bid at a club in Westchester where he was the assistant pro, and he became the coach at Columbia, and the program took off. This started in the 1980s, and I would play with some of the team members. When they put a permanent bubble over six outdoor courts they wanted to name it after me. We were fighting about it; I went to Cornell, so I didn’t think a place at Columbia should have my name.BG: Dick was my secret recruiting trick. I would say to these students, “Where else in this country can you get a Wimbledon champion to help you?” We had kids coming in from Asia, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, all over America, and when they got to New York, the first thing they wanted to do was meet Dick.He studies tennis, so he would come in and watch someone play, and he would figure out what was wrong with his serve or whatever. He noticed these little things that only he could point out. So I wanted to name the tennis center after him. I had his friends explain to him, people are slowly forgetting who you are, so this facility should be named after you.Mr. Savitt, you made it to the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 1951, which gave you lifetime perks, including being able to access the locker room in Flushing Meadows. What are your favorite memories from the tournament?BS: My dad used to go every day and every night for two weeks. It’s harder for him to get around now, but we went last year and had a great day, and we will go again this year.When the tournament was at Forest Hills, it was much smaller, and everyone was in suits and jackets. We would talk to the players. They didn’t have the entourages, all those coaches and trainers, so you had access to them.For most of his life at Forest Hills or Flushing Meadows, he couldn’t walk five feet without bumping into someone who was a friend or someone who knew him when he was playing competitively.Our box is right behind the court, so when my dad knew all the guys playing he would actually be coaching them even though you weren’t allowed to. He would encourage them when they got down, or if he saw their opponent had a weak backhand he would say, “Get on the backhand.”BG: At the U.S. Open, back in the day, all the tennis people would know Dick. They would call him Mr. Savitt, even Arthur Ashe. It’s a little different now, but I think he prefers not to be known. He was always very serious about watching tennis, and he didn’t want to talk too much. I remember Alan King, the comedian, had a box next to Dick’s, and when Alan was waving to the crowds, Dick would get mad and say: “Sit down. Sit Down. This is about the tennis.” More

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    Naomi Osaka Withdraws from Wimbledon

    Osaka has not played at Wimbledon since 2019.Naomi Osaka, whose four Grand Slam wins came on hard courts, will not play at Wimbledon later this month, she announced in a social media post on Saturday.Her message shared photos of her rehabbing and receiving acupuncture treatment on her left Achilles’ tendon, an injury which plagued her through a first-round ouster at the French Open last month.“Trying to find the positives in a negative situation so all love. But there goes my grass dreams,” Osaka said.Osaka, who has won both hard court Grand Slams — the Australian and U.S. Opens — twice, has never made it past the third round at Wimbledon. She last played the event in 2019, losing in the first round in a year that saw her change coaches after rising to her first No. 1 ranking.After her exit at Roland Garros last month, Osaka told reporters that she was leaning toward not playing at Wimbledon after the WTA Tour stripped the Grand Slam event of ranking points in response to Wimbledon’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.“I feel like if I play Wimbledon without points, it’s more like an exhibition,” Osaka said. “I know this isn’t true, right? But my brain just like feels that way. Whenever I think something is like an exhibition, I just can’t go at it 100 percent.” More

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    Rafael Nadal, Chasing Grand Slam, Will Head to Wimbledon

    Nadal, hobbled by a foot injury while winning the French Open, said he would play in the grass-court tournament, which begins on June 27.PARIS — The Grand Slam is still in play.On Friday, Rafael Nadal confirmed at a news conference in Majorca that he will travel to London on Monday with the intention of playing Wimbledon, which begins on June 27.Nadal, who has won the first two Grand Slam tournaments of the year, had cast doubt on his participation in Wimbledon because of his chronic left foot problem.The condition, Muller-Weiss syndrome, has troubled him since his late teens. He received painkilling injections from his personal physician to numb the foot before each of his matches at this year’s French Open.Nadal won that clay-court tournament for the 14th time on June 5, extending his lead in the three-way major titles race with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. Nadal now has a men’s record 22 Grand Slam singles titles, two more than Djokovic, whom Nadal beat in the quarterfinals in Paris, and Federer, who at age 40 is still recovering from his latest knee surgery. But Nadal said he would not take similar injections or measures at Wimbledon and instead has tried to find a longer-term solution for his foot by undergoing radio frequency ablation, which deadens nerves through the use of radio waves.Nadal, 36, had the procedure in Barcelona on June 7, leaving the medical facility on crutches, but he resumed practicing on grass this week on his home island of Majorca. He said on Friday that though the procedure did not give him “100 percent” relief immediately, he was able to push off with his left foot with less pain. He said that there was still occasional numbness in his foot but that he had been told that should dissipate with time.“I’m content,” Nadal said on Friday. “I’ve gone a week without limping. Day to day, I have experienced some different kind of pain than what I had before. That’s progress for me. We will have to wait and see how everything evolves.”While confirming that he intended to play Wimbledon, Nadal also confirmed that he and his wife Maria Francisca Perello are expecting their first child.“I don’t know how it changes your life because I don’t have experience with that,” he said. “But this does not change my professional life.”Nadal after defeating Casper Ruud to win his 14th French Open men’s singles title.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesOn Friday, Nadal trained on grass at the Mallorca Country Club with Feliciano Lopez, the 40-year-old Spanish veteran who is set to play Wimbledon for the 20th consecutive time.Nadal, who won Wimbledon in 2008 and 2010, has not played in any grass-court tournament since 2019, when he lost in the semifinals of Wimbledon to his longtime rival Federer.“I’ve still got a week of training in London, and if everything goes well I will start the tournament,” said Nadal, who is scheduled to play in an exhibition in London before Wimbledon. “Playing well at the French Open helps in terms of confidence and gives you a bit more peace of mind. But grass is a very difficult surface in the sense that there is little logic. Obviously when you have gone the years that I’ve gone without playing on grass and with the fact I am not going to play official matches beforehand, any round could be complicated.”Nadal has made a habit of talking down his chances, but the men’s field at Wimbledon will be understrength this year. Wimbledon has barred Russian and Belarusian players because of the war in Ukraine, which means that No. 1 ranked Daniil Medvedev and No. 8 Andrey Rublev, both Russians, will not take part. No. 2 Alexander Zverev of Germany tore ligaments in his right ankle in his French Open semifinal against Nadal and underwent surgery. Zverev could be out of action for several months.But Novak Djokovic, the world’s best grass-court player in recent years, will play Wimbledon, where he has won the last three men’s singles titles. He will be seeded No. 1 and start as a strong favorite. Nadal will be seeded No. 2, and like Djokovic a year ago, is chasing a Grand Slam, which requires a player to win all four majors in the same calendar year.The last man to do it was Rod Laver in 1969. Djokovic came up one match short, losing the 2021 U.S. Open final to Medvedev. Nadal, for the first time in his long career, has won the first two legs of the Grand Slam after winning the Australian Open and French Open.But he has not won Wimbledon in 12 years and has not won any grass-court title in seven years. More

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    The U.S. Open will allow Russian and Belarusian tennis players to compete.

    The U.S. Open will not follow Wimbledon by barring Russian and Belarusian players from this year’s tennis tournament.The United States Tennis Association, which owns and operates the U.S. Open, announced the decision on Tuesday after a recent meeting of its board of directors. The move leaves Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam tournament to bar Russians and Belarusians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.“This horrible atrocity absolutely weighed on all of us,” said Lew Sherr, the Association’s new chief executive, referring to the war in Ukraine. “But I think at the end of the day we chose not to hold the individual athletes accountable for the decisions of their respective governments.”Russian and Belarusian players will compete in the U.S. Open, which will begin Aug. 29, under a neutral flag, just as they have been competing on tour and at the recently concluded French Open. More

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    U.S. Open Will Allow Russian and Belarusian Tennis Players to Compete

    The move leaves Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam tournament to bar Russians and Belarusians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.The U.S. Open will not follow Wimbledon by barring Russian and Belarusian players from this year’s tennis tournament.The United States Tennis Association, which owns and operates the U.S. Open, announced the decision on Tuesday after a recent meeting of its board of directors. The move leaves Wimbledon as the only Grand Slam tournament to bar Russians and Belarusians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.“This horrible atrocity absolutely weighed on all of us,” said Lew Sherr, the new chief executive of the U.S.T.A., referring to the war in Ukraine. “But I think at the end of the day we chose not to hold the individual athletes accountable for the decisions of their respective governments.”Wimbledon’s ban, made partly in response to pressure for action from the British government, has received strong support from the British public, as demonstrated in opinion polls. But the ban was met with disapproval from the men’s and women’s tennis tours, which responded by stripping Wimbledon of ranking points this year despite considerable debate and dissent among players.Sherr said U.S.T.A. officials had discussions in recent weeks with the leaders of Wimbledon and the other two Grand Slam tournaments, the French Open and the Australian Open. “It was very clear each of us was dealing with a unique set of circumstances,” he said. “Wimbledon, in their case, there was a government directive involved as well, and we came out and strongly supported their decision given their circumstances. Our circumstances are different, and in our case, we felt this was the right decision for us.”Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine WarHistory and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.Russian and Belarusian players will compete in the U.S. Open, which will begin Aug. 29, under a neutral flag, just as they have been competing on tour and at the recently concluded French Open.Daniil Medvedev of Russia won the U.S. Open men’s singles title last year and is back at No. 1 in the ATP singles rankings this week. Victoria Azarenka of Belarus is a three-time U.S. Open women’s singles finalist. Aryna Sabalenka, another Belarusian women’s star, reached the semifinals of last year’s U.S. Open.Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus reached the semifinals of last year’s U.S. Open.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressAll will be absent from Wimbledon, which begins on June 27, and Russian and Belarusian players have also been barred from the preliminary events this month in Britain at Queen’s Club, Eastbourne and other venues. The U.S.T.A. ultimately chose to go in a different direction, even though Sherr reiterated on Tuesday that it viewed the tours’ decision to strip points from Wimbledon as “disproportionate.”For now, no other tour events outside Britain have followed Wimbledon’s lead, although tennis authorities did move swiftly after the invasion of Ukraine to bar Russian and Belarusian teams from competing in team events like the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup.“This is not an easy situation,” Sherr said. “It’s a horrific situation for those in Ukraine, an unprovoked and unjust invasion and absolutely horrific so anything we talk about pales in relation to what is going on there.”Sherr said the U.S.T.A. would use the U.S. Open to help raise funds for relief efforts in Ukraine and to “demonstrate our support for the Ukrainian people.”Sherr said the U.S.T.A. had received no pressure or directive from the U.S. government related to the participation of Russian and Belarusian players.Russian players like Medvedev have already competed in the United States since international restrictions were put in place, playing in March at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and at the Miami Open. Russian stars in other sports, like Alexander Ovechkin of the N.H.L.’s Washington Capitals, have continued to compete for their North American clubs.“The discussion in the board was really about principles and what we felt was right for us and not a function of what the N.H.L. might be doing; not a function of even what might be happening elsewhere in tennis,” Sherr said. “Really it was a fundamental issue of on the one hand you have atrocities and a horrible situation and on the other hand are we prepared to hold these individuals accountable for those decisions?”Though Medvedev should be able, if healthy, to defend his title in New York, the player he defeated in last year’s final, Novak Djokovic of Serbia, remains unable to enter the United States because he is an unvaccinated foreigner. That policy, which kept Djokovic from competing in Indian Wells or Miami this year, could change before the U.S. Open begins, but Sherr made it clear on Tuesday that the U.S.T.A. would not be seeking an exemption for unvaccinated foreign players to compete in New York.“We are going to follow the government and C.D.C. directives,” said Sherr, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More

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    Serena Williams Plans to Play at Wimbledon

    Williams hasn’t competed since she was injured during the first round of Wimbledon last year.PARIS — Serena Williams, absent from competitive tennis for nearly a year, said on Tuesday that she intends to return for Wimbledon, which begins on June 27.Williams, 40, has not played on tour since leaving a match in considerable pain with a right leg injury during the first round of Wimbledon last year against Aliaksandra Sasnovich.Sasnovich, a Belarusian, is one of the players banned by Wimbledon this year because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been supported by Belarus. But Williams plans to return, and Wimbledon confirmed on Tuesday that she was receiving a wild card to play singles.If she does indeed take part, it will be her 21st appearance at Wimbledon, where she has won seven singles titles and seven doubles titles, six of the doubles titles with her older sister Venus Williams.It is unclear whether Venus Williams, 41, is also planning on returning to the tour. She has not competed since last August in Chicago.Because of the inactivity, both sisters’ rankings have dropped far from their usual zones. Venus Williams is No. 571. Serena Williams is No. 1,208, which explains why she required a wild card to gain entry to Wimbledon.In her brief Instagram post on Tuesday announcing her plan to play Wimbledon, Serena Williams also tagged the Eastbourne International tournament. That suggests that she intends to return to competition for the WTA grass-court event in Eastbourne, England, which begins on Saturday. That would give her at least some match play before Wimbledon. More