Paris, France, 22 July 2024 | Harriet Rendle
The nine-person Australian tennis team have started to arrive in the Olympic Village.
Paris 2024 Olympic Games Tennis event will be played on clay at Roland Garros from Saturday 27 July to 4 July, during the first week of the Games.
Paris 2024 marks the 37th year of Olympic Tennis and will see 15 Olympic medals awarded.
The competition includes five events – men’s singles (64 players), women’s singles (64 players), men’s doubles (32 teams), women’s doubles (32 teams) and mixed doubles (16 teams).
The Australian Olympic Tennis team features five debutants: world No.6 Alex de Minaur, Alexei Popyrin, Rinky Hijikata, men’s doubles world No.3 Matt Ebden and Olivia Gadecki.
Ajla Tomljanovic, top 10 women’s doubles player Ellen Perez and Daria Saville return for their second Olympic Games.
While John Peers will compete in his third Olympic Games, equalling the second most Olympic appearances for an Australian men’s tennis player.
Peers was the last Australian tennis player to win an Olympic medal when he teamed up with former world No.1 and three-time Grand Slam champion Ash Barty to win the mixed doubles bronze in Tokyo.
Men’s singles: Alex de Minaur, Alexei Popyrin, Rinky Hijikata
Women’s singles: Ajla Tomljanovic
Men’s doubles teams: Matt Ebden & John Peers, Alex de Minaur & Alexei Popyrin
Women’s doubles teams: Ellen Perez & Daria Saville, Ajla Tomljanovic & Olivia Gadecki
Mixed doubles: Team nomination will be submitted on Wednesday 24 July
Approximately 170 tennis players will compete in Paris. In both the men’s and women’s competitions, there is a maximum of six players per country, of which a maximum of four may compete in the singles event, a maximum of two teams may compete in the doubles event, and one team in the mixed doubles.
Each competition features a knockout draw. Singles matches are best-of-three tiebreak sets. In doubles, if the score is tied at one set all, a 10-point tiebreaker will be played to determine the winner.
In all events, the semifinal winners play to decide the gold and silver medals and the semifinal losers play for the bronze.
The official draw for the Olympic Tennis event will be held at 11am local time, Thursday 25 July.
Play will start at 12.00pm on Saturday 27 July across 12 match courts including Roland Garros’ three prized stadium courts – Philippe Chatrier, Suzanne Lenglen and Simonne Matheiu.
Men’s and women’s singles and men’s and women’s doubles will commence on the first day of play. The mixed doubles will commence on Monday 29 July.
Tennis appeared on the Olympic program in Athens 1886 and remained until Paris 1924. It returned at Seoul 1988. Mixed doubles was added at London 2012.
Edwin Flack won Australia’s first Olympic Tennis medal, a bronze alongside Englishman George Robertson in the men’s doubles in 1986. In 1900, women made their Olympic Tennis debut.
Since Seoul 1988, nine Australian players have won Olympic medals including one gold, one silver and four bronze medals.
Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde (The Woodies) have been the most successful Australian players at the Olympics, winning Australia’s only gold medal in men’s doubles at Atlanta 1996. They won a silver medal at Sydney 2000.
Elizabeth Smylie and Wendy Turnbull won bronze in the women’s doubles at Seoul 1988 and Rachel McQuillan and Nicole Bradtke also claimed a bronze medal at Barcelona 1992.
At Athens 2004, Alicia Molik won Australia’s first individual tennis medal, a bronze in the women’s singles.
At Tokyo 2020, Australia won their first medal since Athens, with Ash Barty and John Peers combining to win bronze in the mixed doubles.
