Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics
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Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Singles		men		women
Doubles		men		women

Pictogram used to identify tennis at the 2008 Games

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 single event proved notable for being one of only two Olympiads — and the first since 1908 — in which all medalists were from the same country.^[1] Despite their singles victories, however, the Russian women failed to advance past the quarterfinals of the women's doubles. Instead, Beijing brought the return of the gold medal to the United States, following their only failure to capture the gold since the event's re-introduction at the Seoul games.

The men's singles featured the first time an Olympian had medaled in consecutive Olympiads since the 1920 games,^[2] while the men's doubles gave Switzerland its first medal in the event. The doubles also returned Sweden and the United States to the medals stand for the first time since the 1988 re-introduction of the sport.

Qualification

Main article: Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Qualification

The majority of players in the singles competitions (56 of a 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.^[3][4] For the doubles competitions, 10 players qualified directly. The remaining 86 places were allocated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) based on world rankings.^[5] 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^[6] had to find a new partner (his partner at the time was Serb Nenad Zimonjic)^[7] and led one South African player, Liezel Huber, to seek U.S. citizenship so that she had the opportunity to play.^[8] 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).^[5]

The rankings of July 9 were used to determine the direct entrants.^[3] 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 Schuettler, who was propelled up the rankings by his semi-final appearance at Wimbledon,^[9][10] to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and win his right to play at the Olympics, provoking a hostile response from the ITF, as it was a deviation from their original regulations.^[11]

ITF places

Nicolas Massu from Chile, who was the defending champion.

ITF places, ostensibly a form of wild card,^[12] 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.^[13][14] 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.^[12] 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.^[15]

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 Bjorkman (who was retiring at the end of the year),^[15] nascent stars such as Kei Nishikori and Kevin Anderson, and defending champion Nicolas Massu. In the women's singles, the ITF places went to Alicia Molik, a former top ten player, 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.^[15]

Preview

Despite debate being re-ignited about tennis's place at the Olympics,^[16][17] and the attestations of Serena Williams and 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,^[16][18] 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 attendence.^[19] This was a huge improvement on only 12 years ago in Atlanta, when only 3 men from the world's top 10 entered.^[20] Players had been further incentivized to compete at the Olympics after the ATP and WTA began awarding ranking points as of the 2000 Games.^[21] 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,^[22] but many players expressed their enthusiasm for the Games, including Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal,^[23] Jonas Bjorkman, Nicolas Massu,^[15] Andy Murray,^[24] Jelena Jankovic,^[25] Elena Dementieva,^[26] Alicia Molik,^[15] and Venus and Serena Williams.^[23]

Men's Singles

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.^[27][28] 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 favorites included top-ten players Novak Djokovic, the reigning Australian Open champion, 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.^{[29][30][31][32]}

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 Shaoxuan replacing withdrawn players as alternates.^[33]

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.^[34] 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-halfs of the year. The pair were subsequently forced to withdraw from the Olympics.^[35][36] The favorites included Jelena Jankovic, 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.^[29][30]

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;^[37] Zheng Jie, who raised hopes by becoming the first Chinese player to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam singles tournament at Wimbledon;^[38] and Peng Shuai.

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 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. No tiebreak, a first-to-seven points game initiated when two players or teams reach a score of 6–6, was played in the final set.^[5] 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 Clement & Michael Llodra and Simon Aspelin & Thomas Johansson, extending to 19–17 in Aspelin & Johansson's favour.^[39]

Medal summary

Medal table

Swiss player Roger Federer.

Retrieved from Beijing Olympics 2008 Official Website.^[40]

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Russia (RUS)	1	1	1	3
2	Spain (ESP)	1	1	0	2
3	United States (USA)	1	0	1	2
4	Switzerland (SUI)	1	0	0	1
5	Chile (CHI)	0	1	0	1
5	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	0	1
7	China (CHN)	0	0	1	1
7	Serbia (SRB)	0	0	1	1
Total		4	4	4	12

Events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's Singles	Rafael Nadal Spain (ESP)	Fernando Gonzalez Chile (CHI)	Novak Djokovic Serbia (SRB)
Men's Doubles	Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka Switzerland (SUI)	Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson Sweden (SWE)	Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan United States (USA)
Women's Singles	Elena Dementieva Russia (RUS)	Dinara Safina Russia (RUS)	Vera Zvonareva Russia (RUS)
Women's Doubles	Serena Williams and Venus Williams United States (USA)	Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual Spain (ESP)	Yan Zi and Zheng Jie China (CHN)

Venue

• Olympic Green Tennis Centre

Capacity

• Centre Court - 10000 seats.
• Show Court 1 - 4000 seats.
• Show Court 2 - 2000 seats.
• Remaining Courts - 7 courts seating for 200 seats each.

Surface - DecoTurf II

Calendar

Note: due to rain delays the Women's Singles schedule was been pushed back a day.

Ranking points

Rankings points determine the position of a player in the ATP (men's) and WTA (women's) rankings, which are based on players' performances in the previous 52-weeks. For the Olympics, the men's player who won received 400 ranking points^[41]—put in perspective, this is 100 more than a win at the most prestigious International Series Gold tournaments, 100 less than a Masters Series win, and 600 less than a triumph at one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.^[42]

References

External links

• International Tennis Federation - The Tennis Event at the 2008 Olympics

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