Tennis of the Olympians
View(s):Exhibition of tennis at Paris Olympics of 2024 was appealing, even though field did not have full attendance. The regular French Open Stadium in Paris was their venue for the event. The stadiums French made for the 2024 Olympic events were out-of-the-ordinary.
The opening ceremony to enrich spectators with Parisian history was memorable. The access to watch Paris 2024 Olympics with global TV network coverage gave everyone stadium seat viewing opportunity. The cost France bore to create these arenas along with security cost in the middle of their change over in governance stressed France utmost.
The trend to have memorable opening ceremony goes back to the Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. It portrayed Spanish history. Paris 2024 showed its history with their beloved river Seine, Eifel Tower and the ancient metropolis of Paris as its backdrop. Even in damped weather, it stood out to create nostalgic memories.
Origin of Olympics
Olympics dates back to about 3000 years. First held on a ‘stade’ about 192-metre-long track in Aegean Greece. [Stadt, probably the origin of the word ‘stadium’]. A religious event and was not the only one of its kind. Most accepted date of the origin of Olympics is 776 BC. Then around 393 AD games ceased to exist. History will to tell why.
New Era Games
In the warring Europe, Baron Pierre de Courbertin of France in 1890 rallied revival of the modern games, for the sake of peace. First of the modern games was in 1896 in Greece with Greek presidency. France’s Baron Pierre de Courbertin was the second president. Paris hosted the games in 1900, 1924 and now 2024. Winter Olympic game began in 1924.
Tennis was in Olympics in 1896 and dropped out in 1924. Reintroduced in 1988.
Player qualification
for Olympics
Tennis has organised annual competition calendar conducted by WTA and ATP. The resulting ranking of these events turned out to be the valid qualification for Paris 2024 Olympics. The Olympics portraits participatory nations much stronger and with prominence with their medal aggregate count.
In the last 50 years, many sports have evolved to have annual calendar. This is apart from Olympic, regional and professional leagues. These accommodates professionalism, giving athletes regular income to live. Today sportsmen are not baker, butcher, tailor and candlestick makers of Greeks islands, but high-income generating performers.
The dependency on professional ranking of to participate in Olympics is irksome. Regardless, professional ranking has become the prerequisite to participate in Olympics. This is keeping out the cross section from people-of-the-world spirit in the modern games.
Djokovic´s gold –
after 16 years
The gold medal Novak Djokovic of Serbia won for his singles beating Carlos Alcaraz of Spain came after participating in four Olympics, that is 16 years. He sang his heart out while standing on the victory stand [He has an injured knee and is spoken about, he takes time off citing it in matches, then comes back in full force] Young with youthful flair, Alcaraz, showed Spanish potential in the final. He seemed to live on the court with his team, and he will have to mature into being self-dependent in competitions. Tennis is very brutal when it comes to competition stress. Matches have exceeded five hours at times. Longest match in is over six hours.
The bronze medal in Men’s Singles went to Lorenzo Musetti of Italy. It is the first Olympic medal to Italy in 100 year. Difficult to believe!
China’s Qinwen Zheng
After China’s Li Na’s performance of winning a Grand Slam event, Qinwen Zheng’s tennis gold medal performance at the Paris 2024 must be the most cherished memory to Republic of China. She beat WTA’s No.1 Iga Swiatek on her way and in the final dark horse of women’s tennis this year, Dona Vekic of Serbia. Vekic’s tennis carrier is somewhat out of the ordinary. Her tennis is solid has full fledge stroke making repertoire, appealing to watch. She plays at base like, mid court and at net with equal tactical potent. She is 28 and moved around into and out of three to four countries. Now she lives in Monte Carlo.
The Women’s Doubles title went to Italy. Errani and Italy’s newfound player Poalini, won the second gold for Italy in 100 years. Chech Republic’s Sinniakova and Thomas won the Mixed Doubles gold for their country.
Tennis and Olympics
The impact of Olympics on tennis is not profound as we feel it during the Olympics weeks. Benefit tennis has being in the Olympic movement is the support the game gets at grass root level development. The professional bodies, WTA and ATP do not provide this to nations in the manner and method Olympic council provides. Every country has an IOC set up, ours been prominent in recent times for wrong reasons.
Like all aspects of life, all sport activity too rolls through phases, from productive, sustaining and destructive. This is how people feel about Olympics and sports.
–George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach, coached ATP, WTA, ITF ranked players in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880–