Sunday, August 1, 2021

A dozen medals later, Olympic tennis concludes

I've read, on Twitter, that many tennis fans didn't watch much (or any) of the tennis matches at the Olympics. Some fans opted to watch sports that they don't otherwise get to see, or at least, see very often. And some just weren't interested, given the absence of some major players, and the early exit of others. My problem involved time zones--I just couldn't wake up in the middle of the night or the very early morning to watch matches.

I did get to see some live matches, however, and I watched a few replays. There were a few standouts in singles, and two of them had something in common: Elina Svitolina played in them. Her round of 16 match against Maria Sakkari was thrilling and of very high quality, as was her bronze medal match against Elena Rybakina (who continues to impress). The other memorable match was the final (which is always a nice thing), in which Belinda Bencic defeated Marketa Vondrousova.

Svitolina, incidentally, is the first tennis player from Ukraine to win an Olympic medal.

As always, some of the subtexts and backstories were as interesting as the tennis. Bencic has long been known as a talent to watch, yet she has never reached the heights to which many thought she would climb. Now, she has Olympic gold and silver. Then there's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, whose backstory is about the same as Bencic's. When the Russian player reached the final of the French Open, it felt like it was such a long time coming. At that time, Pavlyuchenkva said, "I want to believe that the best is yet to come," and now, she has a gold medal for mixed doubles.

Pavlyuchenkova's countrywoman, Elena Vesnina, took 32 months off for maternity leave. Upon her return, she reached the third round of the French Open in singles, and the final in mixed doubles (with Aslan Karatsev). At Wimbledon, she and Veronika Kudermetova knocked out the defending champions (and top seeds), and finished as the runners-up. 

Quite a comeback. Vesnina and Karatsev made it all the way to the final at the Olympics, too, and held a match point in the process. The Russian came away with a silver medal (she also played for a bronze in doubles), but we will also remember her for acing (and defeating) Novak Djokovic.

Here are the winners:

Singles
gold--Belinda Bencic (Switzerland)
silver--Marketa Vondrousova (Czech Republic)
bronze--Elina Svitolina (Ukraine)

Doubles
gold--Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic)
silver--Belina Bencic/Viktoija Golubic (Switzerland)
bronze--Laura Pigossi/Luisa Stefani (Brazil)

Mixed Doubles
gold--Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova/Andrey Rublev (Russian Olympic Committee)
silver--Elena Vesnina/Aslan Karatsev (Russian Olympic Committee)
bronze--Ash Barty/John Peers (Australia)

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