Tennis tournament
Tennis competitions at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were held from August 10 to August 17 at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre. The DecoTurf surface rendered the event a hardcourt tournament.
The women's singles event proved notable for being one of only two Olympiads — and the first since 1908 — in which all tennis medalists were from the same country – with Russian women sweeping the medals.
The men's singles featured the first time an Olympic tennis player had medaled in consecutive Olympiads since the 1920 Games, while the men's doubles gave Switzerland its first medal in the event. The doubles also saw the return of Switzerland and the United States to the medals stand for the first time since the 1988 re-introduction of the sport.
Medal summary.
Russia, the country that finished atop the medal table, won all three of its medals in the women's singles. This made them the first nation to win all three medals in an Olympic tennis competition since Great Britain in 1908. Rafael Nadal's gold for Spain made him the first Spanish tennis player to win a gold medal at the Olympics, and Nadal was also the first player from within the men's top 5 ranking to win in Olympic competition. Serbia, competing at an independent NOC for the second time, won its first tennis medal; and the United States continued to be prolific in women's doubles, having won every competition (including this one) since 1988, except in 2004.
Fernando González, who won the silver medal in men's singles, became the first tennis player since Charles Winslow (at Stockholm 1912 and Antwerp 1920) to win consecutive Olympic medals, having won gold (doubles) and bronze (singles) in 2004. In the men's doubles, Switzerland won its first medal in the event, and Sweden and the US returned to the podium for the first time since 1988.
Retrieved from the Beijing Olympics 2008 official website.
Events.
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Qualification.
The majority of players in the singles competitions (56 of 64 players in the draw) gained entry through their position in either the ATP (men) or WTA (women) rankings. The remaining eight places were given to six players who gained ITF places (wild cards) and two who received invitations from the Tripartite Commission, which were intended to go to National Olympic Committees (NOCs) with small teams. For the doubles competitions, 10 players qualified directly. The remaining 86 places were allocated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) based on world singles rankings. This method of allocating doubles places angered some players, such as Leander Paes, and led to some perceived discrepancies: Martin Damm and Pavel Vízner of the Czech Republic, ranked eighth in the ATP Race, were not seeded, whereas Nicolás Almagro and David Ferrer of Spain, who were highly ranked in singles but had not played doubles together before, were seeded fifth.
In the doubles, as in every team event at the Olympics, athletes had to compete on the side of athletes from the same NOC. This method of forming teams meant that Canadian world number one Daniel Nestor had to find a new partner (his partner at the time was Serb Nenad Zimonjić) and led one South African player, Liezel Huber, to seek U.S. citizenship so that she had the opportunity to play. Each NOC could submit a maximum of 6 players; this sextet could be composed of a maximum of four singles players and four doubles players (two teams).
The rankings of July 9 were used to determine the direct entrants. A number of tournaments, including the prestigious Wimbledon Championships took place between this date and the time of the Games beginning, and some players re-entered the qualification places during this time. Rainer Schüttler, who was propelled up the rankings by his semi-final appearance at Wimbledon, went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won his right to play at the Olympics, provoking a hostile response from the ITF, as it was a deviation from their original regulations.
ITF places.
ITF places, ostensibly a form of wild card, were awarded to six players in both the men and women's singles, with one further place dispensed in the women's competition after Stephanie Vogt, entering via the Tripartite Commission, withdrew. The four official criteria for ITF place consideration were world ranking (no numeric specification), whether the country was represented in the tennis event, the number of players on site, and geographical location. However, there was some flexibility to these regulations: ITF president Ricci Bitti stated that it was his intention for the ITF places to grant opportunities to young players and players from under-represented countries, and to reward players who had competed diligently for their nation in the Davis or Fed Cup, or whom were former medalists.
The ITF places were announced on July 30. Sun Peng was originally the only Chinese man to enter the men's singles, and did so through the ITF places. Accompanying Sun were multiple Grand Slam doubles titlists Max Mirnyi and Jonas Björkman (who was retiring at the end of the year), nascent stars such as Kei Nishikori and Kevin Anderson, and defending champion Nicolás Massú. In the women's singles, the ITF places went to Alicia Molik, a bronze medalist in 2004, and Chan Yung-jan, a young player, with the remaining spots going to Mariya Koryttseva, Nuria Llagostera Vives, Ayumi Morita, Selima Sfar (a veteran Fed Cup player), and Tamarine Tanasugarn, who gained the retrospective place.
Preview.
Despite debate being re-ignited about tennis's place at the Olympics, and the attestations of some players (such as Andy Roddick, who chose to play an American tournament in order to prepare for the U.S. Open), that the Grand Slams remained the pre-eminent tennis tournaments, the 2008 Games saw the strongest field of competition since tennis's re-introduction to the Olympics in 1988. The singles competitions featured 17 of the top 20 men, and 18 of the top 20 women, with all of the top five men in attendance. This was a huge improvement on only 12 years ago in Atlanta, when only 3 men from the world's top 10 entered. Players had been further incentivized to compete at the Olympics after the ATP and WTA began awarding ranking points as of the 2000 Games.
Apathy towards the Games was still present, as Roddick and 2004 Men's Singles silver-medalist Mardy Fish opted not to play in Beijing to better prepare themselves for the U.S. Open, and Tom Tebbutt, commenting for "The Globe and Mail" (Canada), said "tennis appears headed for a downer at the Olympic Games". However, many players expressed their enthusiasm for the Games, including Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Jonas Björkman, Nicolás Massú, Andy Murray, Jelena Janković, Elena Dementieva, Alicia Molik, and Venus and Serena Williams. Novak Djokovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova said that they felt the Olympics were of equal or even greater prestige than the Grand Slams, and Federer maintained that the Olympics were one of his priorities for the season.
Men's singles.
By winning gold in this Beijing Olympics, Rafael Nadal cemented his place in tennis history by winning gold in his first try. In the calendar year preceding the 2008 Olympics, there was a shift at the hierarchy of men's tennis as Rafael Nadal displaced Roger Federer as the world number one, after his record consecutive 237-week stay at the top of the rankings. From the second round of the 2008 Hamburg Masters to the semi-finals of the 2008 Cincinnati Masters (the last tournament before the Games), winning the French Open and Wimbledon in between, Nadal had won 32 consecutive matches. Due to the way the rankings are accrued, Nadal became number one on August 18, the day after the Olympic tournament, although this had been confirmed earlier. Nadal was therefore considered a strong favorite, as was Federer, who, despite reaching two Grand Slam finals, had had a poor year by his standards. Other top-ten players considered to be favorites included the reigning Australian Open champion, Novak Djokovic, Spanish world No. 4 and 2007 Tennis Masters Cup finalist David Ferrer, James Blake, David Nalbandian, Nikolay Davydenko and British player Andy Murray, who was lauded in the British press after winning the Cincinnati tournament and reaching the semi-finals of the previous week's Toronto Masters.
Three Chinese nationals appeared in the men's draw, but none qualified automatically, with Sun Peng relying on the places issued by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and Yu Xinyuan and Zeng Shao-Xuan replacing withdrawn players as alternates.
By losing the final and thus settling for silver, Chile's Fernando González became the sixth tennis player, and fourth male player, in history to have won gold, silver and bronze medals in Olympic tennis. Following his gold medal, Nadal would later become just the second man to win a Golden Slam - Olympic gold in addition to the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open - with victory at the 2010 US Open (the first man to win a Golden Slam had been Andre Agassi, who completed his set at the 1999 French Open after winning gold in Atlanta in 1996.) He would also be elected as Team Spain's flagbearer for the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 after being forced to withdraw from the London 2012 tournament at Wimbledon due to tendinitis.
Women's singles.
The women's game also underwent a period of transition in 2008. Justine Henin, the incumbent world number one and reigning Olympic champion, retired on May 14, citing a lack of motivation for the game. Since then, three women had held the number one spot, and two, Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic, had grappled with injury and poor form after successful first halves of the year. The pair were subsequently forced to withdraw from the Olympics. The favorites included Jelena Janković, who assumed the world number one ranking on August 11, the second day of the tennis tournament; Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova, the world number three, Elena Dementieva, who was a silver medalist at the 2000 Summer Olympics, and Dinara Safina, the French Open finalist who had won back-to-back tournaments in the weeks before the Olympics; and the Williams sisters Venus and Serena, who had strong Olympic pedigree having won the singles (Venus) and doubles in 2000, and who had recently played each other in the Wimbledon final.
A trio of players also represented China in the women's draw, although all three qualified automatically, unlike in the men's. They were Li Na, who was a semi-finalist at the Tier I Doha before succumbing to injury for most of the Summer; Zheng Jie, who raised hopes by becoming the first Chinese player to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam singles tournament at Wimbledon; and Peng Shuai.
Venue.
Surface – DecoTurf II
Competition.
Format.
The tennis competition at the Olympic Games consisted of a single elimination tournament. The size of the singles draw, 64, meant that there were six rounds of competition in total, with five in the doubles owing to its smaller draw size of 32. Players reaching the semi-final were assured of an opportunity to compete for a medal, as the two losers in the semi-finals contested a bronze medal match.
Matches were "best-of-3 sets", except for the Men's singles and doubles finals which were "best-of-5 sets". The decisive final set had no tiebreak. With athletes needing a two-game advantage to win the match, this led to one match's final set, the men's doubles semi-final between Arnaud Clément &amp; Michaël Llodra and Simon Aspelin &amp; Thomas Johansson, extending to 19–17 in Aspelin &amp; Johansson's favour.
Calendar.
Note: "due to rain delays the Women's Singles schedule was pushed back a day."
Day 1.
On Day 1, the conditions were at a humidity level of 89%, and ITF commentators felt that this, along with the heat and smog, would result in fatigue for some players, especially in longer matches. Play did not begin at the scheduled time of 10 a.m., and was delayed until 12.53 p.m., when number eight seed James Blake began his match against Chris Guccione on the Centre Court. The Women's Singles competition also commenced. However, play was suspended again at 4.26 p.m., and eventually cancelled for the rest of the day.
Only nine matches of the 20 scheduled matches were completed as a consequence of the rain-disrupted sessions. Blake progressed, as did fourth seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko, Chilean Fernando González, Czech Tomáš Berdych, and Argentine Guillermo Cañas, who benefited from a retirement from his opponent Frédéric Niemeyer, who