TOKYO 2020OLYMPIC TENNIS EVENT

Tournament Preview Tennis is featuring at the Summer Olympic Games for the 16th time as a full-medal sport. The sport was part of the inaugural Summer Olympics in 1896 and remained on the programme until 1924. It returned as a full-medal sport at Seoul 1988 (after being played as a demonstration event in both 1968 and 1984). Since then, the men’s and women’s singles and men’s and women’s doubles have been played at every Olympic Tennis Event, with the mixed doubles returning at London 2012. Great Britain’s Charlotte Cooper became the first individual woman to win a gold medal in any Olympic sport when she won the women’s tennis singles at Paris 1900. The Olympic Tennis Event is taking place on outdoor hard courts for the 7th time. The Centre Court at the Ariake Tennis Park has a retractable roof – marking the 2nd time since tennis returned to the Olympics in 1988 that matches can be played indoors. Two matches were played under a roof at London 2012, when the event was held at Wimbledon. The 2020 Summer Olympics were postponed by one year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Olympic Tennis Event was originally due to take place from 25 July to 2 August 2020. EVENT OVERVIEW Dates: Saturday 24 July – Sunday 1 August 2021 Start times: 11:00 (Saturday 24 – Thursday 29 July), 12:00 (Friday 30 July – Sunday 1 August) Gold medal matches and medal ceremonies: Friday 30 July (men’s doubles); Saturday 31 July (women’s singles); Sunday 1 August (men’s singles, women’s doubles, mixed doubles) Bronze medal matches: Friday 30 July (men’s doubles); Saturday 31 July (men’s singles, women’s singles, women’s doubles, mixed doubles) Venue: Ariake Tennis Park Surface: hard courts (DecoTurf); electronic line calling is available on all match courts Draw size: 64 (men’s singles, women’s singles), 32 (men’s doubles, women’s doubles), 16 (mixed doubles). Visit the ITF website to see full details of the qualification process and the final entry list. Mixed doubles draw: Tuesday 27 July (after sign-in deadline at 11:00) Scoring system: all singles matches are played as best of 3 tiebreak sets; all doubles matches are played as best of 3 tiebreak sets with a match tiebreak as the final set Extreme weather: The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Tennis Event will implement an Extreme Weather Policy, with Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) measurements will be taken daily, every half hour, beginning at approximately 10:00am. WBGT measurements of 30.1°C or higher could lead to modification of play for men’s and women’s singles matches, or the suspension of play for all matches. More information is available here. Number of players: 191 Number of nations: 46