About Tennis
When Irishman John Boland travelled to Athens for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, he had no idea he would return home with the gold medal in tennis. But then, he had no idea he would compete either - he went as a spectator.
Times have changed dramatically for Olympic tennis since then. Today's Olympic tennis players include some of the highest profile athletes in the world. Accustomed to five-star hotels and high stakes price money, at the Olympic Games they will bunk in the Olympic Village and compete for nothing but a gold medal.
Tennis was dropped from the Olympic program after 1924 amid turmoil over such issues as where to draw the line between amateurism and professionalism, and it didn't return as a medal sport until 1988. Today, Olympic competition includes men's and women's singles and men's and women's doubles.
Tennis Basics
As with most tournaments, Olympic tennis is a knockout competition - one loss and you're out. All matches except the finals are played to the best of three sets except the men's singles and doubles finals, which are played to the best of five. In all four divisions, the semi-finals winners play to decide the gold and silver medals, and the semi-finals losers play for the bronze.