Olympic Tennis
The Olympics are underway and the tennis tournament has proven to be exciting with a few major surprises so far and some great match ups setting up for the medal matches later on. The quarterfinals are already going causing some shock amongst tennis fans around the world, and especially in the USA and in Switzerland.
The favorites on the Men’s side are the usual powers such as Nadal of Spain, Federer of Switzerland, Murray of Britain, and Blake from the United States. On the Women’s side of the competition, Jankovic of Serbia, the Williams sisters of the United States, and Elena Dementieva of Russia are the favorites. Both Murray and Jankovic suffered from uncharacteristically early exits with losses in the first and second rounds respectively. Dementieva and Serena Williams had a quarterfinal match up against one another and Dementieva won in three sets to defeat the multiple grand slam title winning Williams.
Perhaps the most interesting development of the Olympic tournament was the continuation of the downward turn Swiss star Roger Federer’s career is taking. American James Blake, who had taken but one set from Federer in all of his career matches versus him, won in a quarterfinal match in straight sets to advance to the semifinals. While Blake is a big story, Federer may even be bigger because of how it seems like the day is soon to come when budding Spaniard Rafael Nadal will surpass Federer for the world’s number one position, a spot held by Federer for the better part of the last 5 years. It will be an interesting development to see how Federer handles losing his number one ranking as he has been their for the better part of his career.
