Fast Facts – Olympic Tennis Trivia by @JRCunniff
Trivia based on tennis since it’s re-introduction to the modern Olympics in 1988.
1. First Time Seeded – The following countries have a seed in this event for the first time:
• Women’s Singles – AUS (Stosur), DEN (Wozniacki), CHN (Li)
• Men’s Singles – JPN (Nishikori)
• Men’s Doubles – POL (Fyrstenberg/Matkowski)
• Women’s Doubles – ITA (Errani/Vinci, Pennetta/Schiavone)
2. Singles Medalists – Twenty medals have been awarded in both Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles since 1988.
• 17 different woman have been awarded a medal in Women’s Singles
• Nine of the17 women have been ranked WTA No. 1 at one time in their career (Graf, Capriati, Sanchez-Vicario, Davenport, V. Williams, Seles, Henin, Mauresmo, Safina)
• All 17 of the Women’s Singles medalists have ranked among the WTA Top Ten at one time in their career
• 19 different men have been awarded a medal in Men’s Singles
• Five of the 19 men have been ranked ATP No. 1 at one time in their career (Edberg, Agassi, Kafelnikov, Nadal, Djokovic)
• 15 of the 19 men have been ranked among the ATP Top Ten at one time in their career.
3. No luck being No. 1
• Only three No. 1 seeds have won the Olympics gold medal in Singles: Graf (1988), Agassi (1996), Henin (2004)
• No. 1 seed Ana Ivanovic withdrew before the start of the 2008 Olympics
• No. 1 seed Lindsay Davenport retired in the second round of the 2000 Olympics
• On only two occasions has the No. 1 men’s seed advanced past the quarterfinals: 1988 – Edberg (bronze), 1996 – Agassi (gold)
4. Multiple Winners – On five occasions, a country has won more than one medal in the same tennis event:
• 1988 Men’s Singles: USA (Mayotte, silver; Gilbert, bronze)
• 1992 Women’s Singles: USA (Capriati, gold; MJ Fernandez, bronze)
• 2000 Women’s Singles: USA (V. Williams, gold; Seles, bronze)
• 2004 Men’s Singles: CHI (Massu, gold; Gonzalez, bronze)
• 2008 Women’s Singles: RUS (Dementieva, gold; Safina, silver; Zvonareva, bronze)
5. Federer’s Struggles
• Roger Federer’s career W-L singles record on Tour 853-192 (81.6%)
• Roger Federer’s career W-L singles record at Olympic tennis 8-4 (66.7%)
• Federer has yet to win an Olympic medal in Singles, having lost to Tommy Haas, Arnaud Di Pasquale, Tomas Berdych and James Blake