Tennis Preview

As the all-time leader in Olympic tennis medals with 39 — and the leader with 24 since the sport was reinstated as an Olympic medal event in 1988 — Team USA looks for continued success in 2021 on the heels of winning three medals at the Rio Games in 2016.

The Olympic tennis competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games will follow a knockout format with 64-player men’s and women’s singles draws and 32-team men’s and women’s doubles draws, as well as a 16-team mixed doubles event, which was first contested at the London Games in 2012. Tennis at the Tokyo Games will be played July 24-Aug. 1 on hard courts at the Ariake Tennis Park in the Tokyo Olympic Park, and all matches will be best-of-three sets.

On the U.S. women’s side, the team boasts three players ranked in the world’s top 30 in No. 15 Jennifer Brady, No. 26 Jessica Pegula and No. 29 Alison Riske. The women’s doubles spot goes to lone returning Olympian on the women’s team in Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who will team with Pegula. Mattek-Sands won mixed doubles gold in Rio with Jack Sock.

The men’s team consists of four first-time Olympians in singles: No. 52 Tommy Paul, No. 57 Frances Tiafoe, No. 66 Marcus Giron and No. 68 Tennys Sandgren. Rio mixed doubles silver medalist Rajeev Ram will team with Tiafoe this time in men’s doubles, while first-time Olympian Austin Krajicek will team up with Sandgren.

Mixed doubles teams will be made from the existing pool of players.

Updated on July 20, 2021. For more information, contact the sport press officer here.

 

• The field in Tokyo will look a bit different without a few legends of the sport. The Williams sisters (Serena and Venus) and Bryan brothers (Mike and Bob) have collected a total of 14 Olympic medals over their careers but will not be competing in Tokyo. It will be the first Games without a Williams since 1996 and the first Games without a Bryan since 2004.

• Instead of that experienced field, the U.S. team for Tokyo will be relatively young and inexperienced internationally. There are no returning Olympians among singles players and just two returning Olympians in doubles. But despite the lack of international achievements, Team USA’s players have put together strong performances thus far in 2021, with Jennifer Brady making a run to the final of the Australian Open. 

• Jennifer Brady, 26, is peaking at just the right time heading into Tokyo. Since the start of 2020 she has made career-best finishes at the US Open (semifinals in 2020), French Open (third round in 2021) and the 2021 Australian Open, where she made the final for the first time at a Grand Slam. 

• Frances Tiafoe, 23 is a rising star who reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam event for the first time at the 2019 Australian Open, shortly after his 21st birthday. Tiafoe became the youngest American Grand Slam quarterfinalist since Andy Roddick in 2003.

• Rajeev Ram, 37, achieved a career high of No. 5 in doubles on Feb. 3, 2020, and captured Australian Open titles in 2020 in men’s doubles and in 2019 and 2021 for mixed doubles. He set an Open era record by winning his first Grand Slam men’s doubles title in his 58th appearance. Ram is the winner of 20 doubles titles and claimed the silver medal in mixed doubles at the 2016 Rio Olympics with Venus Williams.

• Alison Riske, 31, had her best season as a professional in 2019, winning her second career WTA singles title, reaching two additional finals and achieving a career-high No. 18 world ranking. Riske also defeated world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

• Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 36, won her 27th career WTA doubles title in 2019, two years after reaching the No. 1 ranking as a doubles player in January 2017. She is the winner of nine Grand Slam doubles titles, five in women’s doubles and four in mixed doubles. At the 2016 Rio Games, Mattek-Sands became a gold medalist in mixed doubles alongside Jack Sock.

• July 24, 2021: Olympic competition begins with the first round in men’s and women’s singles and doubles
• July 30, 2021: Bronze- and gold-medal matches for men’s doubles
• July 31, 2021: Bronze-medal match for men’s singles and men’s and women’s doubles 
• August 1, 2021: Gold medal matches in men’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles