Everyone was getting ill at Wimbledon. During a doubles match, the chair umpire asked Serena Williams whether she required a doctor on court, as she was having a problem holding a ball during a game partnered with her sister Venus. Serena eventually withdrew and offered her apology, blaming it on a virus.
Last year's Wimbledon hero, Andy Murray, lost in three straight sets. He didn't mention a virus, but looked sick.
The day before, Maria Sharapova wasn't very snappy during her match and lost to Germany's Angelique Kerber. Even Maria's ponytail seemed like a hysterical, tangled train-wreak instead of the usual whistle neat extension of her tennis game.
Then came Swiss tennis player Stanislas Wawrinka in a match opposite fellow Swiss Roger Federer. Teddy Bear Wawrinka was pale, sweaty and appeared to be fighting something more than his opponent Roger Federer. The Teddy Bear was near boo-hoo condition when he asked the chair umpire to call a doctor.
Holy cow, this was serious!
Doctor came on court during the next break, gave him pills, which were washed down with Evian, and Wawrinka bravely carried on, looking worse than Maria Sharapova's train-wreak ponytail.
Stanislas lost the match. Still, all were winners.
Tennis at Wimbledon! It's simple sport of hitting a tennis ball over a net and making it land within a fixed group of lines: two players, linesmen, umpires and young neatly groomed ball boys scampering across freshly groomed green grass collecting wayward balls.
Clean, neat and honest. All winners there!
Switching channels to BBC news, the rest of the world wasn't as clean, neat or honest. Chaos prevailed in the Middle East. A Palestinian boy living in east Jerusalem was kidnapped, beaten, set alight and found dead in an Israeli forest. It was a revenge killing for the murder of three Israeli boys killed weeks before. Riots followed. Israel called out the tanks. Young Palestinian boys in thread-worn clothes were filmed scampering across bomb-pitted streets collecting rocks to throw at tanks.
Hours away by plane, or more instant by switching channels.
No winners here. Only munitions makers profit from war
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