A number of top players have suggested or outright declared that they will not take part in the Olympic Games tennis tournament which has prompted an inordinate amount of pearl-clutching from fans and sections of the media.
Players cannot be compelled to compete in every single tournament that somebody else has deemed to be important. As it stands the ATP and WTA has a hard enough time getting every top player to take part in mandatory tournaments with the threat of a rankings drop doing little to deter a player who feels they are ill, burnt out or injured from giving these marquee events a miss.
Of course, the Olympics are different because they only take place every four years if a pandemic doesn’t interfere. Adding another emotional element is the fact that participating in the Olympics is seen as representing your country.
The spectre of nationalism brings with it a certain amount of irrational thinking. A player should want to bend over backwards to fly the flag of their country after all, provided that flag isn’t one that the Western world doesn’t like.
Tennis authorities have made little to no effort to ensure that the regular schedule is adjusted in order to accommodate the Olympic Games event.
Paris Olympics organisers have further complicated matters by opting to stage the tournament on the clay of Roland Garros rather than on hard courts.
The tournament comes hot on the heels of Wimbledon and will require players to switch between grass surfaces and clay which increases the likelihood they will suffer injuries.
Players who haven’t developed their clay court game often opt to skip the entire swing including the Masters, WTA 1000 and the clay court Slam at Roland Garros.
The Olympics will have a clay court lead-in with the European summer clay swing taking place between Wimbledon and the Olympics just as it would usually slot in between the grass swing and the US Open season which starts in the first week of August.
To be fair to organisers the slot they have chosen for the Olympic tennis tournament is probably the best one they had available for an event played on clay.
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As a tournament that falls outside of the regular professional tours, the Olympic Games event doesn’t offer any rankings points.
While players will often say that they don’t think about or play for rankings, the game is currently inextricably linked with these systems and rankings points are a currency that is relevant to players given how much depends on them at the elite level.
The problem with the Olympics is that they rely on sentiment to draw players in and far too many players are cynical professionals, and are correct to be in a sport that is so unforgiving.
In Tokyo, players pulled out citing the then still rampant pandemic, now Paris is plagued by similar player withdrawals with most citing workload as the reason they will not play.
On top of carrying no rankings points, the Olympics also offers no official prize money which could offset the risk of injury.
The amateur ethos of the Olympics holds little appeal to professional sports people whose chosen arena doesn’t centre around the games.
Efforts to integrate the Olympics into the global system for tennis haven’t really been successful since the games re-introduced the sport in 1988.
Tennis is also a largely individual sport where team events have been forced to the periphery of the game and the appeal to nationalism doesn’t always override more practical concerns.
If the event is to maximize its lure then more work needs to be done by the IOC and tennis bodies to make it appealing to players beyond offering them the chance to win a chunk of metal to hang around their necks and the opportunity to wave a flag about.
