Olmps

‘La DIVINE’ SUZANNE LENGLEN, WHO LOST JUST TWo SETS IN SEVEN YEARS

without a win after 1932).. Since then, new countries have entered the fray, with Sweden, Germany, Russia and Spain successively challenging the supremacy of the old guard..The women’s game has followed a similar pattern:America and Australia dominated the picture in the 1960s and 1970s, but a power shift towards Eastern and Central Europe began in the 1980s..Williams sisters aside, it has continued ever since..

Game On: Tennis Basics

The Court

Tennis is played on a rectangular court 78ft (23.77m)

long, divided by a net 3ft high at its centre. .The width of the playing area is 27ft (8..23m) in singles matches and 36ft (11m) in doubles, hence the tramlines on either side of the court.. Balls other than services hit into these tramlines are deemed ‘in’ in doubles matches but ‘out’ in singles matches..

312 HOW TO WATCH THE OLYMPICS

Scoring

Whoever invented the scoring system in tennis was

equal parts genius and lunatic. .There seems no obvious logic at work, yet the system is devised in such a way that a match can remain tense and in the balance right to the death.. Indeed a single point can prove a player’s undoing or salvation, turning a whole match..

There are three fundamental units: points, games and sets..

A game is made up of several exchanges (‘points’), all beginning with services delivered by the same player.. Each point ends either with a ‘double fault’ (failure to deliver a valid serve in two attempts) or with a player failing to make a legitimate return.. The game is won by the first player or doubles pair to accu- mulate 4 points, with the proviso that they must be at least 2 points ahead of their opponents.. If the score reaches 3 points all, it is described as ‘deuce’, and the game continues until one player wins it by drawing 2 points ahead..

Except it’s not that simple..Tennis scoring does not operate on a single-point system: instead, a player earns 15 points for the first exchange they win during a game, another 15 for the second and 10 for the third..A score of nil is describe as ‘love’, a term derived from the French oeuf (egg), a suitably zero-shaped object..The server’s score is always announced first, so a typical progression might be 0-15, 15 all, 30-15, 40-15, game to the server.. If 40–40 (deuce) is reached and a player draws one point ahead, they are described as having ‘advantage’..

A set is made up of several games, with the service changing sides after each one..The first player to win 6 games wins the set, provided they are at least 2 games ahead of their opponent.. If the score reaches 5 games all, a player can win the set by winning the next two games, but if it reaches 6-6, the players enter a tie- break..Thankfully at this point the accounting system reverts to normal..The first player or pair to reach 7 points wins the set, provided there is a 2-point lead; if the score reaches 6-6, play continues until one player has a 2-point lead.. (In the final set of an Olympic mixed doubles match, the target is 10 points rather than 7; the 2-point rule applies..) The player whose turn it was

to serve in the set serves the first point of the tie-break; his or her opponent serves the next two points and after that the serve rotates after every two points..

Olympic tennis matches are the best of three sets, with the exception of the men’s singles final, which is, as per tradition,

the best of five..

Play

Play begins with one player serving the ball from behind

the baseline on the right-hand side of his or her end of the court.. For a service to count, it must land in the box diagonally opposite the server, who changes sides after each point.. Servers get two chances to deliver a legitimate serve per point.. If they fail, they register a double fault and the point goes to the opponent.. If the ball clips the net en route to landing in the correct box, a let is played and the service is retaken with no penalty.. If the receiver fails to get his or her racquet to a winning serve, it is known as an ace..

If a legitimate service is returned, a rally ensues, with the players alternately hitting the ball over the net until one of them loses the point by committing a fault, either by missing a ball that lands in the court, or by hitting it into the net or out of bounds.. If a shot ends with the ball clipping any part of a boundary line, it is deemed valid..

Equipment

Players in the first Olympic incarnation of tennis

used racquets made of laminated wood, with animal gut strings forming a head with a surface area of around 65 square inches. . Today, racquets are typically made of carbon fibre mixed with fibreglass and all manner of high tech substances..They have much larger heads than their predecessors (up to 137 square inches) and far bigger ‘sweet spots’ – the part of the striking surface that delivers maximum power and control.. Strings are now synthetic..

The balls used in tennis are made of felt-covered vulcanised rubber. .They rapidly lose their bounce and ‘nap’ (fluffy coating), once released from the pressurised cans in which they are stored and knocked around the court, and start behaving oddly.. For this reason, they are changed frequently during the course of a match..

The All England Club usually insists that players wear white but has agreed to relax its rules for the 2012 Olympics.. Expect a riot of sartorial colour..

Evolution of the Rules

The rules of tennis have changed little since the

1890s. . Between 1908 and 1961, players were required to keep one foot on the ground when serving..Tie-breaks were instituted during the 1970s and latterly the sport has introduced a points challenge system, based on ‘Hawk Eye’ technology: players can call for a video-based review of an official’s decision any time they like, although they lose this right for the remainder of any set in which they have made three invalid challenges..They do, however, get another ‘life’ in the event of a tie-break..

The Finer Points

Grass court tennis is faster than tennis played on

clay or hard courts.. Expect lots of aces, particularly in the men’s competitions. . If you are lucky enough to attend a match, relish the opportunity to see the action from a different angle to the one invariably used in television coverage. .You don’t appreciate how fast the game is until you see it live..Watch how the players try to manoeuvre their opponents into positions where wide expanses of court open up, allowing them to deliver killer shots..

You’ll appreciate, too, the diverse playing styles of the competitors.. Serve-volleyers typically rush to the net after serving, trying to narrow the angle of possibility for their opponents’ returns. . Baseline players only approach the net when they have to, for instance when retrieving a drop shot..

For those only accustomed to watching Grand Slam tournaments,the three-set format of the men’s singles and doubles will be a novelty..The effect is to reduce the margin for error.. Losing a set is far more serious than in five set matches, where a player who falls far behind in one may choose to kiss it goodbye and conserve his energy for the next one..

Tennis Goes To The olympics

Tennis was one of The nine sporTs ThaT feaTured in

the 1896 Games in Athens, and the men’s singles title was won by an Irishman named John BolAnd, representing ‘The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’. Not having expected to participate in the competition (he was drafted in by a Greek friend who was a member of the organising committee), Boland played in heeled shoes with leather soles.

In 1900, ChArlotte ChAttie Cooper of the UK defeated Hélène Prevost of France in the women’s singles final, becoming the first female to win an Olympic title – her gender having been forbidden to compete in the ancient Games.

Americans won all the tennis medals in st louis in 1904, which is hardly surprising as there was only one foreign entrant. British players won gold in all six tennis events at the subsequent Games in london – but this time there weren’t any Americans. There was just one American in 1912, when medals were divided fairly equally be-

tween FrAnCe, BritAin and south AFriCA, and

none again when France and Great Britain split the golds at Antwerp in 1920. But the USA was back with a vengeance four years later, winning all five titles.

At this point, the issue of professionalism ruined Olympic tennis..The International Lawn Tennis Federation, formed in 1913, banned any player who turned pro from the competitions under its control, which included the Olympic Games.. It was, however, fighting a lost cause.. In 1926 the promoter C..C.. Pyle lured Su-

zanne Lenglen and American star Vinnie Richards, double

Olympic gold medallist in Amsterdam two years earlier, to join his lucrative travelling tour..Within a few years the ‘Pro Slams’ established in the USA (1927), France (1930) and England (1934) had effectively replaced the old Grand ones.. Deprived of its stars, tennis was always likely to fade out of the Olympic programme, and after the 1924 Games it did..

In 1968, the ILTF finally bowed to the pressure and admitted professionals to its tournaments..The IOC eventually followed suit in the 1980s, and tennis reappeared at the Seoul Games, after an absence of 64 years..The men’s singles title was won by Czechoslovakia’s Miloslav MeČiŘ, the women’s by Steffi Graf, whose victory secured her a unique ‘Golden Slam’ – all four Grand Slam titles plus an Olympic gold in the same year..

The tennis tournaments at the next few Games were marked by the inconsistent attendance of the world’s best players – the top five men in the world all participated in the men’s singles in Barcelona but only three of the top ten pitched up in Atlanta

– and some surprising results, notably when Switzerland’s Marc Rosset pipped the likes of Pete Sampras and Boris Becker to the gold in 1992..The growing status of Olympic tennis and the introduction of ranking points for participation have gone some way to solving the attendance problem but the tournaments have continued to throw up the occasional unexpected champion.. Nicolás Massú anyone? The Chilean won both the men’s singles and doubles titles in 2004..

TRIATHLON

4 & 7 August 2012

Hyde Park

Athletes: 110 | Golds up for grabs: 2

Olympic presence

Since 2000.

Olympic Format

1500m swim followed by 40km bicycle race, then 10km run.

Contenders:

Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany occupy

the first four places in the all-time Olympic medals table, followed by Switzerland and Austria..Although it evidently helps to come from a mountainous country, the UK’s Alistair Brownlee is the favourite for the men’s triathlon in London..

Past Champions:

Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Switzer- land and Austria: 1 medal each..

Why Watch Triathlon?

One of the fastest-growing sports in the world,

triathlon is a mightily punishing endurance event: the cumulative effects of its three disciplines – swimming, cycling, running – are gruelling in the extreme, and success hinges on an athlete’s ability to overcome levels of pain that would bring ordinary mortals to a halt..To put the event into perspective, the world’s best times for

the individual components of the triathlon give a cumulative time of a little over 1hr 20min.. Given that a triathlete has to do the three events back-to-back, swimming in cold water outdoors rather than in a warm indoor pool, and running and cycling on tarmac rather than on a springy athletics track and the sleek boards of a velodrome, it’s amazing that Canada’s Simon Whitfield took only 1:48:24 to complete the fastest triathlon on record when winning the men’s gold in Sydney..

As a spectacle, triathlon offers all the pleasures of its constituent disciplines plus some that are uniquely its own..The changeovers are particularly gripping..Watching a competitor zero in on a bicycle racked among 54 similar machines is always impressive and there is the tantalising possibility of an athlete coming to grief while changing out of a wetsuit..

The Story of Triathlon

Multi-sport races of varying degrees of formality have

been around for a long time.. For example an event called Les Trois Sports has been held at Joinville-le-Pont in France since 1902.. It originally featured running, cycling and canoeing, but by 1920 the canoeing had been replaced by a swim across the Marne River.. It was in the USA, however, amid the 1970s craze for jogging, that the form of triathlon contested at the Olympics took shape.. In fact, the triathlon is one of the few Olympic sports with an identifiable date of birth.. It came into existence in California on 25 September 1974, heralded by an announcement in the San Diego Track Club newsletter..

The event was the brainchild of Jack Johnstone, a 38-year-old who had taken to jogging three years earlier to rein in his expanding waistline..An enthusiastic but mediocre runner, he had grown accustomed to finishing way down the field in road races.. He had, however, been an excellent swimmer in his youth, so when he heard about an event called the David Pain Birthday Biathlon, which consisted of a 4..5 mile run followed by a quarter-mile swim, he thought ‘this could be the event for me’..