The 2024 Olympic tennis tournament will be held on the beautiful clay courts of Roland Garros, starting on July 27. This year’s Summer Olympics are being held in Paris, and in the opinion of the world’s top women’s singles player, Iga Swiatek, there couldn’t be a better venue.
That’s because Swiatek is so dominant on clay courts, where she won the French Open earlier this year. The world No. 1 has won the French Open three years in a row and four of the last five. Swiatek is the favorite to win the gold medal, which would be her first. Swiatek entered the tournament in 2020 but had yet to break out, losing in the second round.
But the women’s singles tournament is still up in the air. Swiatek has a host of rivals, young and old, including the world number two, American Coco Gauff, and Elena Rybakina, who has been phenomenal on clay courts recently. Both Gauff and Rybakina have been dominant on clay courts, but have both lost to Swiatek on multiple occasions.
Olympic tennis will be structured similarly to a Grand Slam tournament, with 64 players competing in men’s and women’s singles and 32 pairs competing in doubles. It will be a single-elimination tournament, with medals naturally awarded to the top three finishers. We’ll talk about the individual players below, but we’ll have more details when the draw and first match schedule are announced on July 25th.
Iga SwiatekIt is hard to overstate how good Swiatek is on clay, especially this season. She won the French Open this year and has won four of the last five tournaments. She has also won four WTA 1000 tournaments on clay this year alone. She has not been as strong on other surfaces, not winning Wimbledon or the Australian Open, but she did win the 2022 US Open. She achieved her first world No. 1 ranking in April 2022 and has only relinquished it a few times since then. She has never lost before the fourth round in six French Open appearances and has won four of them.
Coco GauffThe absolute best chance for an American to win the gold medal is 20-year-old Gauff, currently ranked No. 2 in the world. Gauff’s career highlight would be winning the U.S. Open in 2023, but she hasn’t reached a Grand Slam final this year. Her best result at the French Open came in 2022, when she reached the final but lost in straight sets to Swiatek, 6-1, 6-3. In fact, over the past three years, she’s 15-0 at Roland Garros… against everyone except Swiatek. Gauff is arguably the top American woman and the overwhelming favorite against basically everyone — again, except Swiatek —
Elena Rybakina: How good is she on clay? Well, she is the only player who has proven she can beat Swiatek on clay. In 33 appearances by the Polish player on clay, she has only lost twice. Rybakina is not the most consistent player, but she reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon, the quarterfinals in Madrid and the quarterfinals at the French Open in June. She has the ability to give Swiatek a tough fight on clay, but she has to get there first.
Other Americans: Gauff is the favorite among the American women to win, but Jessica Pegula, Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro are also in the running to win. Pegula is the sixth-ranked women’s singles player and last reached a major final on this clay court in 2022. Navarro is ranked 15th in the world, a career-high ranking, and just made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, which is her best record.
Finally, there is Collins, who announced she will retire at the end of this season at age 30. She is playing the best tennis of her career, with a 16-4 record on clay courts in 2024 and a world ranking of 9th. It would be great to win a gold medal and come out on top, but it will be tough to play against these players.
How to watch tennis at the 2024 Olympics
Tennis coverage will be carried by NBC and its various networks and apps. Telecasts will be available on CNBC, USA Network, E!, Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, NBC.comthe NBC app and the NBC Olympics app. The women’s competition begins Saturday, July 27 and runs through August 3.
Check back on July 25th for the latest insights into the Olympic tennis draw and first-round match schedule.
