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Could a Tennis Player Win 8 Gold Medals in 1 Olympic Games?

29 Jul

With the addition of mixed doubles, a tennis player can certainly win 3 gold medals in one Olympic games.  However, we found out in 2008 that 8 gold medals is the apex of Olympic achievements.  Of course, I will ignore that swimming gives multiple medals for covering the same distance with different techniques and has a lot more relays than say track and field does.  After all, who wants to see Usain Bolt backpedal or skip for 100M?

It would take too much training to win medals in both tennis and another racquet sport unless paddle tennis became an Olympic sport

So here is my improbable path for Roger, Novak, Andy or Serena to achieve 8 gold medals.  The given player would have to sweep the 3 tennis events.  Badminton has singles, doubles and mixed doubles events as well.  This would get a racquet maestro to 6 gold medals.  Table Tennis has singles and doubles events but does not have mixed doubles.  This is likely the path of least resistance for a tennis player to win 8 gold medals.  It is the easiest path and also quite impossible even if the schedule would allow for an athlete to compete in all 8 of the events I listed.  Of course, maybe a tennis player could be added to a dominant sailing team or maybe fence his or her way to another gold medal.  Handball is another possible candidate as one of the early names for tennis was jeu de paume (game of the palm).

Tennis could add a Triple Crown to go along with the Grand Slam

It is impossible for a tennis player to get to 8 or even to 4 gold medals in  single Olympic games, but I would love to see a tennis player win 3 gold medals.  For this to happen, it would likely need to be a dominating player on the women’s tour.  If mixed doubles had been around in 2000 when Venus won 2 golds, why couldn’t she have picked up 3?  Serena Williams may win 3 golds in 2012, but the last I heard she was leaning toward not playing mixed doubles.  For the men, Stefan Edberg won bronze in singles and doubles in 1988, but he had the doubles acumen to make a triple gold possible if things broke his way.  Had Federer convinced Martina Hingis to play in the 2012 games, he would have had a slight chance at pulling off 3 gold medals.

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Olympic Tennis Review: 2004 Chile Came to Play

28 Jul

2004 saw the the Olympic games once again fall between Wimbledon and the US Open.  Much like the Atlanta games these games were held on a similar hard court surface to that of the US Open.  This was more desirable than the red clay of the 1992 games, but the games being in Athens meant that participants would travel from North American events in Canada and Cincinnati to Athens and then back to New York to finish the hard court season.

The Women Again Hold Form

The women’s tennis events in the Olympic games have produced a lot of top quality champions.  2004 was no exception.  Justine Henin won the gold medal by defeating Amelie Mauresmo 6-3, 6-3.  Henin won the 2003 French Open and US Open along with the 2004 Australian Open.  Injuries derailed Henin for much of the remainder of 2004, but this gold medal was a nice post-injury prize.  Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won the gold in doubles for China.  The importance of  tennis’ growth in China cannot be overstated.  Conchita Martinez won another medal in doubles by picking up the silver with Virginia Ruano Pascual.

Massu Goes Gonzo and Wins 2 Golds

After Wimbledon 2004 ended, Roger Federer stood as a 3 time major champion, but Andy Roddick had made a strong effort in his 4 set loss to Federer.  Roddick’s gains by attacking the net at Wimbledon were blunted after Federer beat Roddick routinely to take the Masters Series Canada title.  It appeared that the surprise tactic would not have lasting repercussions for their rivalry.  Still, most people would have expected either Federer or Roddick if not both to medal in 2004.  Instead, Chile dominated the games.  Nicolas Massu won the gold medal in singles by defeating Mardy Fish in an epic match 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 .  Fernando Gonzalez took Roddick out en route to the medal rounds and won the bronze medal by beating Taylor Dent 6-4, 2-6, 16-14 (30 game deciding set!).  Two medals for Chile would not be enough as Gonzo and Massu took the gold in doubles as well by defeating Nicolas Kiefer and 2003 Australian Open runner-up Rainer Schuttler in another marathon 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 7-6, 6-4.  The Chilean players also upset the Bryan twins in straight sets en route to the medal round.  Given that Massu never won another hard court event in his career and that he and Gonzo were not exactly doubles specialists, these victories appear to be a bit miraculous.  5 set finals in singles and doubles plus an excellent bronze medal match gave Chilean tennis a week for the ages.  Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic took the bronze medal home for Croatia in doubles.

Final Verdict – An Ambiguous Games

While the men’s results in 2004 were as odd as they were in 1992, the idea of Olympic tennis had grown on the tour and top players seemed committed to the process in a manner that the top players of 1992 lacked.  Women’s singles had produced gold medalists of Graf, Capriati, Davenport, Venus Williams and Henin in the 4 modern era games for tennis.  Still, it would not be until 2008 that both the men and women put forth truly compelling results.

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Olympic Tennis Review: 1996 Better than It had a Right to Be

25 Jul

1992 Fallout 

Tennis in 1996 suffered despite being a logical tune-up for the US Open as the tennis events were held on hard courts in Atlanta, Georgia.  Still, 7 of the top 10 men did not play the event.  Andre Agassi was the #1 seed, but he was fresh off of a Wimbledon loss to Doug Flach (spellcheck keeps wanting to change his name to Doug Flash and losing to The Flash would be less humbling).  Unseeded Jonas Bjorkman drew Agassi in the first round. Bjorkman had a break out singles season in 1997 and lost a tight match to Agassi 7-6, 7-6.  Had that result reversed these games might have fallen to pieces as the tennis facility was not close to the main Olympic facilities in Atlanta.  As tennis crazy as Atlanta is, a loss by Agassi may have killed fan attendance.  Still, the draw was soft on the men’s side of things.  Steffi Graf chose not to play the event, but the women’s draw was solid.  The Atlanta games would be the first of the modern era to have a bronze medal match of the losing semifinalists rather than awarding 2 bronze medals.

Lindsay Davenport Takes Gold 

Davenport did not start winning major events until the 1998 US Open, but the 1996 Olympics foreshadowed a stellar career for Lindsay.  She worked her way through a tough draw and beat Jana Novotna and Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario in the medal rounds.  Jana Novotna took the bronze medal match by beating Mary Joe Fernandez.  Sanchez-Vicario added to her medal haul from 1992 with a silver medal in singles and a bronze medal in doubles with Conchita Martinez.  Jana Novotna picked up a silver medal in doubles with Helena Sukova.  Mary Joe Fernandez lost in the bronze medal match in singles, but defended her 1992 gold medal in doubles with Gigi Fernandez.  Monica Seles was the top seed, but she lost a tight 3 set match to Novotna in the quarterfinal round.  Women’s tennis saw a trend of players compiling multiple medals in the 3 modern instances of tennis as an Olympic sport.

Where Were the Top Men?

A weak draw led to the men’s event looking anemic.  Andre Agassi won gold and this alone helped to prop up the event.  However, Agassi’s form in 1996 was a far cry from what he demonstrated in the late stages of 1994 and most of 1995.  Second seeded Goran Ivanisevic lost in the first round.  The man who upset Jim Courier at Wimbledon 1992, Andrei Olhovskiy, resurfaced more than four year later to reach the quarterfinal round.  Agassi beat Leander Paes and Sergi Bruguera in the medal rounds to take the gold.  Bruguera won the French Open in 1993 and 1994.  Having him contest the gold medal with Andre Agassi, who at that time had won 3 major titles, gave the gold medal match more legitimacy than the draw might have suggested.

The men’s event in Atlanta has to be remembered as much for other medals awarded on the men’s side as it is for Agassi beating Bruguera.  Leander Paes was an entertaining revelation.  For him to claim a bronze medal and help popularize tennis coming from a country with 1 billion people was and is a big deal.  Tim Henman won a silver medial for the UK in doubles.  Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge took home gold in doubles.

Final Verdict – Things Somehow Worked Out 

With no disrespect to Marc Rosset, Olympic medals tend to be won by people at the top of a given sport.  Tennis being a single elimination format is not going to hold form every time, but Agassi winning gold sounded right to casual tennis fans.  The top men’s doubles team winning gold made sense.  The women’s events maintained a sense of order while producing a future star in Lindsay Davenport.  Leander Paes’ hands amazed fans and opponents alike.  Atlanta restored some momentum to Olympic tennis that was lost in 1992.

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Should Mixed Doubles be an Olympic Event?

28 Dec

I have not watched mixed doubles in years, but I did watch at the 2011 Wimbledon and saw Jurgen Melzer destroy the doubles specialist male player on the other side of the net.  What do you think about the 2012 Olympics having mixed doubles as a medal sport?

 

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