Tennis News

Next Friday the curtain will be raised on the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janiero. The following 16 days will see in excess of 10,500 athletes compete for 918 medals, at 34 venues, across 28 different sports.

Among those 28 sports is tennis, which will be appearing at the Games for the 15th time this summer.

So to celebrate tennis’ history at the world’s greatest sporting event, over the coming fortnight wtatennis.com will look back at the seven Olympic tennis tournaments since the sport was reinstated in 1988. Starting with Seoul…

Seoul, South Korea, 1988
Olympic Park Tennis Centre
Hardcourt

Tennis made its return to the Olympics after a 64-year absence at Seoul in 1988. And its return proved to be a historic one.

A strong line-up arrived in the Korean capital for tennis’ rebirth as an Olympic sport, headlined by the game’s latest teen prodigy, Steffi Graf, fresh from completing the calendar Slam at the US Open.

All the talk in the build-up to the event was whether she could add a golden finish to this achievement by climbing to the top of the medal rostrum.

In the early rounds, though, the media speculation appeared to be taking its toll on the 19-year-old; after laboring past Leila Meskhi in her opening match, an out of sorts Graf nearly saw her ‘Golden Slam’ dreams dashed by the Soviet Union’s Larisa Savchenko.

However, a three set tussle with Savchenko seemed to liberate the top seed, who produced some of her best tennis of the tournament to rout the United States’ Zina Garrison, 6-2, 6-0, in the semifinals.

On the other side of the draw, another of tennis’ young stars was shining just as brightly.

Were it not for Graf, 1988 could well have been Gabriela Sabatini’s annus mirabilis; the 18-year-old from Argentina had won three titles coming into the Games and was also the only woman to register wins over Graf that season, having triumphed at Boca Raton and Amelia Island in the spring.

However, their most high-profile encounter, the US Open final, had gone the way of the German, who outlasted Sabatini over three absorbing sets.

By comparison, the gold medal match in Seoul proved to be something of an anticlimax as a relaxed and uninhibited Graf swept her way into the history books with a 6-3, 6-3 win.

“I actually had a very good feeling after the first game of the match,” Graf said. “I really liked the way I was playing. I’m very excited. It’s something not many people after me will achieve. It’s amazing”

Simona Halep neutralized Karolina Pliskova’s big serve in her 6-3, 6-3 win Thursday to reach the Rogers Cup quarterfinals.

During the match, Halep won 51% of return points that were put in play against Pliskova, the WTA ace leader, who has won 62% of her service points this season.

SAP Coaches View shows Halep moved in when facing Pliskova’s second serve, playing 48% of them from inside the baseline. She won 62% of second serve points in the match, including 22% of points which she returned from inside the baseline.

Halep took advantage of her opportunities to break Pliskova. She won 57% of the games in which she held a break chance, breaking four times in seven games.

This performance is in keeping with how Halep has played all season. She stands second on the WTA for return points won in 2016 at 49%.

The SAP Coaches View combines scoring information direct from the chair umpire with tracking data from HawkEye to allow for an in depth look at five different aspects of a match. Each tracking option can be filtered to narrow the focus to specific situations within a match, such as break points. This information is available directly to coaches in real-time during a match on their SAP tablet and also available to them online after matches.

“Return of serve” tracking shows where each service return was struck, differentiating between first and second serves, with an emphasis on how many serves are returned from inside the baseline. This data can be filtered by a particular score.

Halep returned to a second straight Rogers Cup quarterfinal thanks to her return game.