"The Olympic tennis tournament does not fit that mould": Senior journalist argues about tennis Olympics future

Sports journalist James Gray argued that despite tennis's recent success at the Paris Olympics, the sport should not be part of the mega-event in the future. The event finally concluded on Sunday, and Serbia’s legendary tennis star Novak Djokovic eventually won the gold medal after beating Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in the final with a score of 7-6, 7-6.

After the match, the 37-year-old, already regarded as the greatest player in the history of men’s tennis in the Open era in the singles category, having won as many as 24 Grand Slam titles, burst into tears of joy as he finally completed his trophy cabinet. Those scenes became talk on social media as they showed how much it meant for such a legendary tennis star to win an Olympic gold medal for his country despite winning everything on the court.

In the women’s singles category, China’s young tennis sensation Qinwen Zheng won the gold medal for her country after beating Croatia’s Donna Vekic in the final in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 6-3. Gray, in his recent column at iNews, argued that despite recent success in the event, tennis should not be a part of the mega-event in the future. He argued that the primary reason is that in the future, fewer players will be attracted to taking part in the event because of the lack of money involved compared to other mega-events in the tennis calendar.

“In time, most if not all Olympic athletes will be probably be paid something,” he wrote. “It is naive to think that will not change gradually in time. But they will probably never be paid anything like the £2m that Alcaraz earned last time he was in a final at Roland Garros. The Olympic tennis tournament does not fit that mould. Barely a day went by this summer when some player or another declared they would not be playing the Games because it was inconvenient to switch to clay so close to the US Open, where the top players get around £60,000 just for turning up and therefore took far higher priority. Most athletes regarding merely being selected for the Olympic Games a great honour, and the experience of actually spending time at them hugely enjoyable. Some tennis players do too. But they are increasingly few and far between”