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E-mail Xinhua, July 22, 2024
For the first time since Barcelona 1992, the Olympic Games' tennis matches will be played on red clay.
This summer, Paris will witness the final Olympic show of legendary players such as Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, as well as the rise of young stars including Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek.
Rafael Nadal of Spain competes during the men's singles quarterfinal match against Denis Shapovalov of Canada at Australian Open in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 25, 2022. (Photo by Hu Jingchen/Xinhua)
The tennis competitions of Paris 2024 will take place at Roland Garros from July 27 to August 4. A total of 184 athletes from 41 countries and regions will compete for five golds of men's and women's singles and doubles, as well as mixed doubles.
Paris 2024 will be Nadal's fourth and final Olympic Games. The 22-time major champion and twice Olympic gold medalist announced in May that he would probably finish his career in 2024 due to a lingering hip injury. Last month, he skipped Wimbledon to lessen the strain of switching from clay to grass. It seems that the 38-year-old Spaniard aims to add more icing on the cake of his glittering career with another gold at Roland Garros, where he has claimed a record 14 titles.
Another player to bid adieu to tennis is Britain's Murray, who won back-to-back Olympic gold medals at London 2012 and Rio 2016.
The road to the top of the men's singles podium will not be easy, as 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic and rising star Carlos Alcaraz, the youngest man with major titles on hard, grass and clay courts, will both fight hard for their first Olympic gold.
Several high-ranked female athletes, including world No.3 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and two-time Wimbledon runner-up Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, have chosen to withdraw from Paris 2024. However, the women's competition will feature formidable youngsters such as four-time French Open champions Iga Swiatek of Poland and the reigning U.S. Open titleholder Coco Gauff of the United States, who are targeting their first Olympic gold.
In a sport long dominated by Europeans and Americans, Chinese players have long strived to make a breakthrough on the world stage.
This summer, China will send a seven-player squad to Paris, led by women's world No.8 Zheng Qinwen and men's world No. 34 Zhang Zhizhen, who recently made history as the first male Chinese player to secure a seed position at Wimbledon.
Although four Olympic first-timers will represent China in the women's singles, they helped make China one of only six squads to have a full quota of players at the event. Among others, Zhang Shuai and Zheng Saisai, who have previously played at an Olympics, will team up with youngsters Yuan Yue and Wang Xinyu, respectively, in the women's doubles.
Chinese tennis players have made progress in recent years, as Zheng finished runner-up in the 2024 Australian Open, and world No.36 Wang Xinyu reached the last 16 at Wimbledon. Paris will also see the first male player from Chinese mainland on court since Beijing 2008, and Zhang Zhizhen, the Asian Games champion, will look to go as far as possible.
The last time China saw gold in an Olympic tennis event was Athens 2004, where Li Ting and Sun Tiantian defeated their Spanish rivals to win the women's doubles competition, which was also China's sole gold medal in tennis at an Olympic Games. China's best record in singles is the fourth place achieved by two-time Grand Slam winner Li Na, at Beijing 2008.
