Tennis on the brain | Beijing Olympics Blog

02:04 PM ET 07.02 |

With all of the great reporting by SI's L. Jon Wertheim from Wimbledon, we've got tennis on the brain this week as the last major tournament before the Olympics draws to a close this weekend. The IOC has tennis on the brain too; the Olympic tennis tournament entries were announced today. Highlights: Federer and Ivanovic are the headliners, and 18 of the top 20 women in and 17 of the top 20 men are confirmed to participate. When Steffi Graf and Stefan Edberg won the Olympic demonstration event in 1984 (it was limited to the 21-and-under crowd that time around), there were doubters who wondered whether wealthy tennis pros would want to add yet another exhausting event to their calendar. The ensuing 24 years have proven the doubters wrong. Tennis returned to full medal status in 1988 at the Seoul Olympics and Graf won again, part of her unprecedented "Golden Slam." That took the importance of the Olympic tennis event to a new level, and it's been a must-play tournament for the top pros ever since. With tennis taking hold as both a professional sport and a sport for players at all levels in China, the Olympic tennis tournament will be a special one in Beijing.

ITF website on Olympic tennis history

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