ITF reduces Olympic men's singles gold medal match format to best-of-three
Just 13 years ago, tennis fans had the opportunity to watch many best-of-five matches on the ATP Tour outside Majors, with Masters Cup, Davis Cup, Masters 1000 and even some ATP 250 and ATP 500 finals all requiring three sets from the winner to go all the way and win the trophy. A lot has changed since then and it is impossible to find the best-of-five encounters outside Grand Slams now, with ITF announcing the reducing of the Olympic men's gold medal match to the best-of-three format starting from Tokyo 2020.
That means that all the duels during the Olympic event will take place in the best-of-three pattern, with men's and women's doubles to have a match tie break to ten points in the deciding set instead of a third regular set that was in charge until Rio Olympics in 2016. Thus, another chapter of tennis history has come to its end and we could only remember some epic fights for the Olympic glory since 1988 when tennis returned to the official Olympic program after a long break of 64 years. In Seoul (1988) and Barcelona (1992), all the matches in the men's singles draw had been played in the best-of-five format, with no tie break at 6-6 in the decider for an even bigger drama!
That changed in Atlanta in 1996 when only the gold medal match carried the best-of-five format and that was the formula at the following five Olympic games too, with players saving energy before that final clash where they had to dig deep to become the Olympic champion. On August 14, 2016, Andy Murray took down Juan Martin del Potro 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 in four hours and two minutes in Rio to write history as the first player with two Olympic gold medals in men's singles, and that should stay the last marathon Olympic encounter and the one we will remember as the ultimate best-of-five men's gold medal match final.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2CW9Qxc
No comments