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London 2012 Olympic Tennis

travoholic | Jul 3, 2010 |

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Tennis actually has a long history in the Olympic Games, that should bode well for the tennis action in the London 2012 Olympics. Tennis was an official sport from 1896-1924 with women's events added in 1900. I'm not sure what the quality of tennis was back in 1896 but in the men's singles Ireland's John Boland defeated Dionysios Kasdaglis of Greece. Charlotte Cooper became the first woman ever to win an Olympic medal in any sport when she won the women's singles in 1900. There were actually bigger names in the women's draws back them than the men. Suzanne Lenglen won in 1920 and Dorthea Chambers of Great Britain won in 1908.

Olympic tennis then took a break for roughly 50 years for various reasons. It came back in 1968 and 1984 as a demonstration sport. There really was no reason to bring tennis back before then since the Olympics were all about amateur participation and all the best tennis players were professionals. The winners in 1968 were Manuel Santana and Helga Niessen. The movement to get tennis back as a full-time sport in the Olympics really started in 1984. Even though tennis was still a demonstration sport, it was almost treated like a real Olympic sport. Young pros Stefan Edberg and Steffi Graf were the singles winners in 1984 since the competition was for those under 20 only. At the London 2012 Olympics expect the best pros from all over the world to show up.

Tennis was back as an official medal sport in 1988 in Seoul. The competition was fierce and Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia defeated Tim Mayotte of The United States. The U.S. men's doubles duo of Flach and Seguso took the gold in men's doubles. On the women's side Steffi Graf defended her gold medal defeating Gabriela Sabatini of Argentina in the finals. Americans Pam Shriver and Zina Garrison took the gold in doubles.

The last few Olympics more and more of the top players in the world have competed. This bodes well for London 2012. In 1996, Americans Andre Agassi and Lindsay Davenport were the winners on home soil in Atlanta. In 2000, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Venus Williams took home gold medals. 2004 was a big year with Nicolas Massu and Jestine Henin taking home the gold. Rafael Nadal and Elena Dementieva will be the defending champs when the London 2012 Olympics take place. Both of these great players are still exepcted to be on the top of their game, injury permitting. Roger Federer has not won a gold in singles, but he and his Swiss partner Stan Wawrinka are the defending men's doubles champs.

All of these veterans, along with a talented crop of young talent including Andy Murray and Laura Robson will all be taking the court in 2012 for the London Olympics.