File photo of Coco Gauff.© AFP

Tennis at the Summer Olympics is always one of the most anticipated events, but Paris 2024 might just take the cake. Numerous storylines from the world of tennis are in play, as the iconic Roland Garros welcomes the Olympics. The king of Roland Garros – Rafael Nadal – may be playing competitive tennis for the final time. He will be going for a third individual gold. His age-old rival Novak Djokovic is aiming for the one gold missing from his illustrious cabinet. Olympics 2024 is also certainly Andy Murray’s swansong. And between all this, a new demon has taken the world of tennis by storm.

Carlos Alcaraz heads into Paris 2024 having conquered the two most revered courts on earth in succession, winning the French Open and Wimbledon this year. However, perhaps more than the individual clash of titans, fans are also eagerly looking forward to Alcaraz and Nadal playing the men’s doubles together, representing Spain. A poetic pass of the baton from Nadal to Alcaraz sets up an almost Shakespearean storyline.

For India, Rohan Bopanna will pair up with N Sriram Balaji for the men’s doubles category, whilst Sumit Nagal will play the men’s singles.

Format

In Paris 2024, much like every other edition, tennis will have five separate categories: women’s singles, men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles.

Apart from five editions, the bronze medal has been won by the winner of the match between the two losing semi-finalists. It remains the same in Paris.

Since 2021,  the deciding set (third) has a 7-point tiebreaker game to decide the match at 6-all. Should the tiebreaker game be tied at 6-all, whoever scores two straight points wins it.

History

The United States hold the most Olympic golds in the Open era, as well as all-time. Great Britain were the country to beat in the Amateur Era, but the United States have dominated in the Open Era.

The Williams sisters hold the most individual medals in Olympics history, but it is Venus who has one more than Serena. Both boast three golds in women’s doubles and a women’s singles gold, but Venus also won a silver in the Rio 2016 mixed doubles.

Among active male players, Andy Murray has three medals, two of them men’s singles gold (2012, 2016). Rafael Nadal has a singles gold (2008) and a doubles gold (2016). Alexander Zverev is the reigning men’s singles champion.

Leander Paes won India’s only Olympic tennis medal in Atlanta 1996, with a men’s singles bronze. Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi narrowly missed out on a doubles medal in Athens 2004, finishing fourth.

Indian badminton star Satwiksairaj Rankireddy had a fanboy moment in Paris ahead of the 2024 Olympics as he met legendary Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal at the Olympics Village. On Monday, Satwiksairaj shared a picture with Nadal on his Instagram story, with him being ecstatic about posing “with the best”. The Indian contingent will kickstart its Paris Olympics journey from July 25 onwards, with 112 athletes set to feature in 69 medal events across 16 sports. The Olympics will conclude on August 11. India will look to outdo its tally of seven medals from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which included a gold, two silver, and four bronze medals.

Satwiksairaj, along with his men’s doubles partner Chirag Shetty, are perhaps the strongest contenders for a medal.

This year, the popular men’s doubles pair, also known as ‘Sat-Chi’, have won two Badminton World Federation (BWF) Tour titles, the French Open title in March 2024 and the Thailand Open 2024 in May 2024. They also finished as runners-up in the Malaysian Open and India Open.

They were also a part of the Indian team that played in the Thomas Cup 2024 as the defending champions. However, they could not defend the title as they lost to the eventual champions China by 3-1 in the quarterfinals.

With a peak of number one ranking in men’s doubles competition, several BWF Tour titles, the World Championships men’s doubles bronze medal in 2022, gold in men’s doubles competition at Commonwealth Games 2022 and Asian Games Hangzhou the following year and silver medals in mixed team events at these two events, Satwiksairaj-Chirag have a huge cabinet of medals and accomplishments supporting the claim of them being a leading medal contender.

On the other hand, coming to tennis, Nadal lost to seventh-seeded Portugal tennis player Nuno Borges in the final of the Nordea Open on Sunday by 6-3, 6-2. This was his first final in around two years.

In what is deemed to be a dream duo, 22-time Grand Slam champion Nadal and the recently-crowned Wimbledon champion, Carlos Alcaraz will participate in the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics as men’s doubles partners.

Alcaraz and Nadal will be one of the most powerful teams in the men’s doubles category, having won 15 French Open titles between them. The tennis sport at the next Olympic Games will take place on the clay court in Paris.

Rafael Nadal has been vociferous about representing Spain in the Paris Olympics, which is believed to be his final year on the ATP tour as a professional. Nadal underlined his promise to compete in the Olympics after losing in the first round of the French Open in May.

File image of Rafael Nadal.© AFP

Yuki Bhambri (left) and Albano Olivettti.© X/@India_AllSports

It’s often said that finishing fourth in the Olympics is peak agony. If coming last carries the sting of embarrassment, securing the fourth place inflicts the pain of being so near yet so far, something that can either drive an athlete to future glory or leave them completely crushed. India’s affair with near misses at sport’s grandest stage has been a long-standing one, beginning way back in 1956. Here is a look at the instances when Indian athletes came close but ended at just that.

1956, Melbourne: Football

The Indian football team made the semifinals after beating hosts Australia 4-2 in the quarterfinals, with Neville D’Souza becoming the first Asian to score a hat-trick at the Games.

By giving his team the lead, Neville looked like doing an encore in the last-four clash against Yugoslavia. But the Yugoslavians came back strongly in the second half to seal the contest in their favour.

In the bronze medal classification match, India lost to Bulgaria 0-3, drawing to a close an eventful few days which the great P K Banerjee would often reminisce with a hint of understandable anguish.

1960, Rome: Athletics

The legendary Milkha Singh missed out on a bronze by the narrowest of margins.

Competing in the 400m final and touted as a medal contender, the ‘Flying Sikh’ fell short by a mere 1/10th of a second after slowing down to steal a glance at his fellow competitors, an error that he would regret for the rest of his life.

This would go down as his worst memory after losing his parents in the aftermath of the partition.

Milkha almost gave up the sport after this loss and it required a lot of persuasion for him to hit the track again and win two gold medals in the 1962 Asian Games.

1980, Moscow: Women’s Hockey

With top hockey nations such as the Netherlands, Australia and Great Britain boycotting the Moscow Games over the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, the Indian women’s hockey team had a great chance to finish on the podium in its first attempt itself.

But the team endured the agony of narrowly missing out on a medal, losing its last match to erstwhile USSR 1-3 to finish behind Zimbabwe, Czechoslovakia and the hosts.

1984, Los Angeles: Athletics

LA Olympics brought back memories of Milkha in Rome when PT Usha missed the 400m hurdles bronze by 1/100th of a second, making it the closest-ever miss for an Indian athlete in any competition.

Known as the ‘Payyoli Express’, she ended fourth behind Romania’s Christina Cojocaru, but her heroic effort left a lasting impression and she became a household name.

2004, Athens: Tennis

After a long gap of 20 years, the curse of the fourth place returned to haunt the Indian contingent when the celebrated duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi missed out on the podium at the Athens Games.

Arguably India’s greatest doubles pair in tennis, Paes and Bhupathi missed out on a bronze medal after losing a marathon match to Croatia’s Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic 6-7 6-4 14-16 to end fourth.

Before that, the Indian pair went into the semifinals as favourites but lost to the German duo of Nicholas Kiefer and Rainer Schuttler in straight sets 2-6 3-6.

At the same Games, Kunjarani Devi finished fourth in women’s 48kg weightlifting competition, but she was not really in medal contention.

Disqualified in her final attempt to lift 112.5 kg in the clean and jerk category, Kunjarani finished with a total effort of 190kg, 10kg behind bronze-medallist Thailand’s Aree Wiratthaworn.

2012, London: Shooting

Shooter Joydeep Karmakar experienced the terrible feeling of finishing a place behind the bronze medal winner in this edition.

Karmakar had finished seventh in the qualification round of men’s 50m rifle prone event, and in the finals, he ended just 1.9 points behind the bronze medal winner.

2016, Rio de Janeiro: Gymnastics

Gymnast Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian woman gymnast to compete at the Games. After making the final of the women’s vault event, she finished fourth overall with a score of 15.066 and missed the bronze medal by 0.150 points.

She introduced the sport to India and gave the message that one doesn’t have to be born in the USA or Russia to become an excellent gymnast.

At the same Games, Abhinav Bindra’s illustrious career was headed for a fairytale finish but a shooter of even his class was not spared of the curse of the fourth, as he missed the bronze medal by a whisker, eight years after his historic gold medal at the Beijing Games.

2020, Tokyo: Women’s Hockey

A little more than four decades after the 1980 Moscow Games, the members of the Indian women’s hockey team once again endured a similar pain at the Tokyo Olympics, missing out on the bronze.

The Indian side punched above its weight triggering an upset to knock three-time Olympic champions Australia to make the semifinal.

In the semifinals, they suffered a 0-1 defeat to Argentina but still had a shot at the bronze. They looked on course to win the elusive medal as Rani Rampal and Co. took a 3-2 lead against Great Britain.

But Britain scored twice to go up 4-3 and clinch the medal, leaving the Indian team in tears.

At the same Games, golfer Aditi Ashok also experienced the agony of missing out on a historic podium finish.

Ranked 200th in the world, the 26-year-old matched the best golfers in the world shot for shot. But, she eventually fell short after coming agonisingly close and finished fourth.

File photo of Sania Mirza.© AFP

File image of Sumit Nagal© AFP

Aging like a fine wine, Rohan Bopanna is all fired up for his last hurrah at the Olympic Games. Not the one who would rail against circumstances or crib about not having the strongest of partners, the veteran Indian tennis player says his comrade N Sriram Balaji has enough firepower and the scratch pairing is potent enough to test the big teams in Paris. Had Bopanna been ranked outside the top-10, India would not have any representation in the men’s doubles event at the Paris Olympics, starting July 26.

The 44-year-old had to make a choice between Balaji and Yuki Bhambri and after consulting his coaches — Scott Davidoff and Balachandran Mannikkath — he eventually settled for the more “athletic and agile” Balaji.

“I really believe that when we go out there, we genuinely have a chance to win every match, whoever we play against. It’s not like we’re just going to be written off, I feel,” Bopanna told PTI in an exclusive interview.

Bopanna has reason to have that confidence in Balaji’s ability to rise to the occasion. He had a chance to test Balaji at the French Open where Bopanna was pushed along with Matthew Ebden by the Tamil Nadu player and his Mexican partner Miguel Reyes-Varela.

Not only this, Balaji had a consistent run on the ATP Tour where he scalped a few big names such as Americans Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek — both top-10 players — at the Houston ATP 250 event on clay.

With his German partner Andre Begemann, Balaji also defeated Austria’s top-50 players Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler.

Balaji also showed that he can quickly adapt to conditions when he was asked to do the singles duty during the Davis Cup tie against Pakistan on grass. The rival was not of the highest quality but Balaji showed that he was willing to come out of his comfort zone if the team demands.

“The idea is to go prepared, at least believe in as a team. That is what we’re trying to do. With Bala, he definitely has the firepower to do well,” Bopanna said.

He also gave his reason for picking Balaji over Bhambri.

“I felt Balaji, depending on the surface we’re playing with, which is the clay, would have been the ideal partner. Currently, even if you look at (Matthew) Ebden, who I’m playing with, he’s somebody who’s more agile, more explosive on that surface.

“And for clay, especially, I need a partner who would suit me better in terms of going by the surface. If it was a hard court or a grass court, maybe Yuki would have been the preferred choice.” Bopanna though admitted that it was not an obvious but a difficult choice since he has not played with either of them on the Tour.

“Balaji can move well on both flanks? I think he is, given on the clay court, he’s definitely more athletic, given the two of us. Between me and Bala, I definitely need a partner who’s more athletic, more agile.

“Bala has similar capabilities as Matthew. Bala would be fast, quick, swift like Ebden. But Ebden comes with a lot of experience and Bala hasn’t played at that level much.” It also means that Bopanna has to be leader of the team all the time. On the Tour he has Ebden to pull the team out of the pit if Bopanna is having an off day. In the past Olympics, he had illustrious teammates like Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza.

In Paris, it will Bopanna, who has to do the heavy lifting. But did he have any choice? “There is nobody currently in the country who has played that kind of experience as Matthew Ebden. So, no matter who I played with on the country, it would be the same scenario.” Due to the considerable gap in their rankings in the past, Bopanna could never play with Balaji on the Tour. But they have planned to compete in a couple of ATP events, starting with Hamburg Open, to prepare for the Olympics.

“This is my time at home basically to rest, recover and then come back into the circuit. But I thought it’ll be nice to get to know whoever the partner I’m playing with.Try and work and at least try and prepare better than what we have done before maybe.” As the discussion veered over Balaji’s game and how he compliments him, Bopanna had a good things to say about his partner.

“His serve is definitely a big strength. He’s got a powerful shot there. Which definitely helps in the doubles game. No question on it.” Bopanna also said that they don’t just want to show up and get back. They consider themselves worthy of a medal.

“Every athlete who goes into Olympics wants to win a medal, right? There is 100 percent that belief. Everybody wants to do better than the previous time. There’s no question on it, right? That’s how life is. You want to do better. You want to keep going higher and higher.

“Nobody can tell you what can happen. But the preparation going into the games is what really matters.

“This time I was even listening that they have a fantastic medical team there to help the recovery, help the sports science, which is the first time ever, which is amazing. This is what is the progress already for what athletes can get and really see and make a difference,” he signed off.

Tennis events at Paris Olympics start on July 27. 

Carlos Alcaraz after winning Wimbledon 2024 men’s singles title.© AFP