Why no tennis players should go to Tokyo

The chance of winning an Olympic medal doesn’t mean much to Nick Kyrgios

Rafael Nadal doesn’t want one. Neither do Serena Williams or Dominic Thiem or Nick Kyrgios. Novak Djokovic probably doesn’t want one – he’s still thinking about it though. Now Bianca Andreescu, the world No. 5, has decided she doesn’t want one.

In fact, the number of people who think a Tokyo Olympics tennis gold medal is worth having is getting smaller by the day. Ash Barty might win one because no one else turns up to play her.

I haven’t had a hit for a couple of years and my knees have seen better days, but maybe I’m a chance.

One by one, the world’s top tennis players are pulling out of the Olympics, citing concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s always a tough decision and most of them having been dreaming of the Olympics since childhood. “I have made the very difficult decision to not play in the Tokyo Olympics later this month,” Canadian Andreescu said on Tuesday morning. “I have been dreaming of representing Canada at the Olympics since I was a little girl, but with all the challenges we are facing as it relates to the pandemic, I know that deep in my heart, this is the right decision to make for myself.”

But what she really knows deep in her heart is that it doesn’t matter. The chance of winning a medal is not worth the risk and inconvenience of going to Tokyo.

An Olympic medal is not the biggest prize in tennis. Which is exactly why tennis, along with a few other sports – golf springs to mind immediately – should not be Olympic sports.

No sport where the Olympic gold medal is not the highest honour should be in the Games. Unless winning gold is more important than winning any other title – and unless the world’s best players all want to compete – tennis has no place in the Olympics.

Not only are the four grand slams significantly more important to tennis players than the Olympics, but there are a bunch of lesser tournaments that rate higher. There’s the ATP finals and the WTA finals. The Indian Wells Masters is often referred to as the fifth major. Even the Davis Cup, in its much reduced form, is high on most players’ agenda.

The Olympics is the sporting zenith, where the world’s best compete for the greatest honours available to them. In athletics, and swimming, and hockey and handball and a dozen other sports there is nothing more important than an Olympic gold medal. These are the sports that deserve their place in the Games.

The Games does not need sports where a second-rate field of athletes turn up to compete in a tournament no one cares about.