Events / Matthew Walton / 08 August 2008 /

"Magical" Matthew Walton looks back at the past winners of the Olympic gold medal in a bid to find out who will be walking away covered in glory in 2008.

We're reminded at this time that the spirit of the Olympics is all about the joy of taking part, the thrill of competition and the delight in the noble endeavour of the individual. It's not so much the result, as the taking part which matters.

Sadly, betting doesn't operate along the same lines. Many backers find it hard to be philosophical when their bet has just got turned over at Wimbledon, Wentworth or Wincanton. Not too many of us are able to draw comfort from the well-used adage that 'it's not the winning or losing which matters, it's the taking part'. Some help that is when we've done our money!

Hence the Olympic tennis tournament sits rather awkwardly on the ATP schedule. Are we supposed to ignore the betting markets on the Beijing tournament for the sake of 'good sportsmanship' or should we get involved as per usual in what promises to be a fascinating tournament ... we'll go for the latter option.

Since returning to the Olympic fold in 1998 we've seen five competitions held in Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Athens. And these five events have produced plenty of talking points.

If we look back at the history books we can see that the names are not necessarily a selection of the great and the good from the tour. The reigning champion, Nicolas Massu, would hardly be most punter's first choice for a hard court tournament and prior to the Chilean winning in 2004 we may have seen Kafelnikov and Agassi obliging but Marc Rosset (1992) was another to come out of left-field following on from Miloslav Mecir in Seoul.

Added to this fact we have several strange finalists such as Mardy Fish (2004), Sergei Bruguera (1996), Jordi Arrese (1992) and more than a few dubious SF-ists in Taylor Dent (2004), Arnaud Di Pasquale (2000), Leander Paes & Fernando Meligeni (1996).

In short, not the sort of players you'd regularly expect to see in the latter stages of a tournament which, frankly, you'd think has status somewhere around Masters Series level.

Then, looking in more general terms, we see the fate of the seeds during these five tournaments - another illuminating exercise.

And pretty miserable reading it makes for - in five events we've seen just one win for the top seed (Agassi 1996) and no other top seed has even made the final!

We've had one RU for the No.2 seed (Mayotte 1988) and one win for the No.3 seed (Mecir 1988), the best the No.4 seed has managed is R4 (Washington 1996). We've had a solitary success for the No.5 seed (Kafelnikov 2000) but both the No.6 and No.7 seeds have never got a player past R3 and the No.8 seed has only twice made the QF's (Grosjean 2004 & Ferrero 2000).

And, let's not forget, over the years we've seen the likes of Edberg, Becker, Sampras, Courier, Safin, Hewitt and Roddick all play in this tournament. At least Roger Federer made the QF's last time around.

All this data would suggest the event should be approached with a fair degree of caution. Yes, you could argue that a sample group of just five events isn't enough to produce any meaningful conclusions but the repeated failure of all the tops seeds, time after time, is still alarming to us, as backers.

Add to this the dubious form of Federer, the US Open being just around the corner and the questionable playing conditions in China and it all makes for a potentially perilous event for punters.

In fact, if anything, the true form may lie in the women's side of the draw with at least a recognisable roll of honour covering the last five runnings of their tournament. Winners so far being Justine Henin-Hardenne (2004), Venus Williams (2000), Lindsay Davenport (1996), Jennifer Capriati (1992) and Steffi Graf (1988) should give punters sufficient confidence to use the formbook as opposed to the 'dartboard' as a means of finding the women's gold medallist.

Overall, when looking at the men's event in the Olympics we should be mindful of the fact that some players might take it more seriously than others. That isn't to dismiss the chances of the top seeds on the back of the above data, nor to blindly follow the outsiders to the detriment of all form study.

But we shouldn't treat this event like any other tennis tournament. Roger Federer has won 12 Grand Slams and career prize money of close on $42m - how much more would it mean to land a gold medal? Maybe nothing, probably quite a lot!

However, even given the fact that three players (Federer, Djokovic and Nadal) have won the last 14 Grand Slams between them, and have dominated the Masters Series as well in recent years, we could still see an outsider make a strong run this week. Just as some regular ATP events are more conducive to 'formbook irregularities' so might this one.

Keep an eye on the market leaders but don't be surprised if a Davydenko, Gonzalez or Nalbandian springs from the pack once more! Then we'll head back to the USA for delights of the US Open at Flushing Meadows.

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: