Olympic Tennis 7/24 - 7/30 2021

[skatingfan]

Nothing special in singles so far, but a couple of big upsets in doubles. Chan sisters lost and Murray/Salisbury beat Mahut/Herbert.

Andy Murray really does play some of his best tennis at the Olympics.

[patrick]

Two-time defending gold medalist champion for you.

[skatingfan]

Looks like Murray is out of men's singles event - replaced in the draw by Max Purcell of Australia.

[JTContinental]

Barty dumped in straight sets by Sorribes Tormo

Murray pulls out of singles with a quad injury, but will stay in the doubles draw

[Deuce]

... And Purcell beat Felix in straight sets. After a good run at Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago, this was a disappointing, rather uninspired performance by Felix.
After an initial surge, his career has been one of two steps forward, two steps back. It seems that every time it appears that he has finally turned the corner and will now go on to win titles, he then goes on to lose a few matches one would think he'd win. It's still way too early to give up on the idea of him reaching his potential - he turns 21 in a couple of weeks (the same day that Federer turns 40)... but it is nonetheless frustrating to watch him hit highs inevitably followed by lows.

This leaves Leylah as the only remaining Canadian tennis player in the Olympics, as there were only 4 in total, and Dabrowski and Fichman lost their 1st round doubles match, as well.

Svitolina did her best to blow a 5-0 or 5-1 lead in the 3rd set over Siegemund, finally (and nervously) winning it 6-4.

[Suliso]

As far as women's tennis is concerned both Spain and Czech Republic went 6/6 in the first round.

[ashkor87]

i have always been puzzled by the poor performance of great players and the great performance of mediocre players at the Olympics.. for instance, how on earth did Monica Puig win the gold last time? How is it Federer has won only a silver thus far, and Djokovic a bronze? (I am not even sure about that).. of course, I know, Serena, Murray and Nadal have done what we would expect of them..
if anyone has some explanations, I would want to hear them!

[ashkor87]

As an Indian, I was delighted when Leander won the bronze but I still cannot believe how he did it.. what were all the other great players doing?!

[Suliso]

There are very few opportunities. Federer has played four Olympics and only one of them was in the year he finished #1. He did win gold in doubles with Wawrinka, though.

[Ribbons]

As an Indian, I was delighted when Leander won the bronze but I still cannot believe how he did it.. what were all the other great players doing?!

I couldn't resist looking this up. Apparently he was originally supposed to meet Sampras in the first round, but Sampras withdrew because of injury:

The list of seeds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_at ... 7s_singles

ATP rankings/results in 1996:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_ATP_Tour

This article lists who else was missing: http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/20108
LA Times goes into more detail: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html
Stich and Becker were opposed to tennis being in the Olympics (in spite of being 1992 medalists). As for why Richie Regenberg (!) ended up being the #3 singles player for the US team -- and seeded! . . ..

If the U.S. Tennis Assn. were to nominate another singles player, it might be faced with slim pickings. Going down the rankings: No. 5 Michael Chang does not want to play, No. 9 Jim Courier was angry at being passed over the first time and may not be available, and the same is true of No. 16 Todd Martin. Martin, a Davis Cup loyalist, was offered a place on the Olympic team as a doubles player but refused.

I'm curious about why Chang didn't want to play, since he did join the team in 1992 and 2000, and 1996 he won tournaments in the US both before (DC) and after (LA) the Atlanta Games. I guess lack of prestige (aka other top players choosing to skip) and no ranking points on offer may have been enough for him to consider them not worth his while.

[Ribbons]

1996 seems to have had quite a bit of drama across the board: apparently seeding on the ATP side for the US Open was problematic enough for Kafelnikov to bail and Muster to consider it:
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/25/spor ... -open.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_US_O ... 7s_Singles

I wasn't paying attention to tennis during this stretch, but now I might be curious enough to dive into some docs from the era.

[edited to clarify event with seeding shenanigans]

[ponchi101]

1996 USO.
Sampras was #1. Agassi was to be seeded 8th, according to rankings. Kafelnikov 4. So, the USTA DECIDES (with a little nudge from Nike and NBC, who would show the SEMIS) to seed Agassi 4, so if he were to meet Sampras it would be on Super Saturday, and to place all the NON-SEEDS in the draw FIRST, then place the seeds. It was then that a lot of people found out about the Agassi/Kafelnikov switch. It was a mess. They re-did the draw, but it was so blatant to bring Agassi to 4th that a lot of players complained.
---0---
Why the odd Olympic results? The only thing that comes to mind is indeed that you are playing for your country. Financially or points-wise it makes little sense. So it is really just to play for your country. Ashley losing yesterday might have to do a lot with that. #1, on a favored surface, against a good but not great opponent. Wearing that Australia flag maybe truly affected her.
But I can't think of anything else.

[shmrck14]

As far as women's tennis is concerned both Spain and Czech Republic went 6/6 in the first round.

I was thrilled to see that CSN won her match!

[jazzyg]

Chang once said he felt more Chinese than American because of the lukewarm reception he often received from American fans. Tbat may have played a factor, but the bigger one probably was his chase of the No. 1 world ranking, If Sampras had not saved a match point against Correjta on the way to the U.S. Open title, Chang would have been No. 1. He won the first set against Sampras in the final and took the second set to a tiebreak with another chance to become No. 1, but after losing the tiebreak, he looked defeated and went down meekly. He never reached No.1 in his career, but that summer was by far his best shot.

[Deuce]

After a rather one-sided 1st set, Leylah put up a good fight to come back in the 2nd set vs. Krejcikova - but the Czech was just too good in the end.

Singles and doubles are finished for Canada.
I think Gaby Dabrowski and Felix are playing Mixed Doubles together.