Tennis - Did Federer and Williams peak to soon?

Yesterday the Wimbledon tennis tournament ended. The tournament is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments that are played every year and is probably the most famous tennis venue in the world. This will also be the venue for the 2012 London Olympic games so the recent tournament has shown who the favourites for the gold medals are. Even though tennis is an old sport it was left out of the Olympic programme between 1924 to 1988. After the 1988 Seoul games the sport has been a permanent fixture in the Olympics.


The Olympic tournament will give out five gold medals in this event: Men's and Women's singles and doubles and Mixed doubles. In mixed doubles one man and one woman play together something that is a rarity in an Olympic sport where sexes usually don't compete against each other. All events will be held in a knock-out format.

If you don't know the sport of tennis a quick summary can be found here: http://www.london2012.com/tennis/about/


The three main favourites for the Men's singles event are: Rafael Nadal (ESP), Novak Djockovic (SER) and Roger Federer (SWI). Roger Federer recently won his 7th Wimbledon title making him the second person in history to accomplish that along with the tennis legend Pete Sampras. If he plays in the same way he did during the tournament I think he will be the clear winner. Home favourite Andy Murray (GBR) made it to the finals and is an outside home favourite for a medal.


In the Women's competition the clear front runner is Serena Williams (USA) who also won at Wimbledon this weekend, but there are a lot of good players at her heels hoping for medals.

For the Men's doubles the competition is wide open while the Women's doubles have a clear favourite in the Williams sisters (USA) who together hold ten individual Wimbledon titles (five each) and recently won the doubles last weekend (their fifth Wimbledon title) and they have also won two Olympic golds medals in the 2000 Athens and 2008 Beijing games. The mixed doubles favourites are Bryant and Raymond (USA).

There is bound to be a lot of suspense during the tennis tournament during the Olympics at an amazing venue and who's going to win among the many favourites. One mistake can make all the difference and the set-up of the knock-out system will play a big part in the outcome of the medals. I can't wait for the thrilling finals and the grueling duels. Spectators will not be dissapointed.