Welcome to the first ‘proper’ day of the Games! I hope you’re all as excited as I am.
We’re about halfway through the predictions (who knew there were so many events?!?) but we’re close to finishing the events that start over this first weekend. In this post we’ll be looking at the three racket sports in these Games – Badminton, Tennis and Table Tennis.
Badminton
Badminton at the Olympics has been dominated by Asian nations over the years, and this is likely to continue here, at a Games held in Asia. There have been 34 Gold medals awarded in the sport and 32 of them have gone to athletes from Asian countries.
One of the only two non-Asian nations to have won gold is Denmark and they have a chance to repeat that feat again here, with Rio Bronze medalist Viktor Axelsen and current World number 3 Anders Antonsen both harbouring realistic chances of medalling. I also expect the home nation to enjoy a strong Games, with Kento Momota a favourite in the Men’s Singles and with the Women’s Doubles having a realistic potential of a 1-2 finish for Japan.
One word of warning in advance about the Doubles events though – following the 2012 Olympics, changes were made to the format of Badminton (and other sports) which have a group stage to begin with. The draw for the knockout stages will not be made until after the group stage is completed. This is to avoid teams manipulating the draw to avoid a tougher matchup, as famously happened in London, and which resulted in the disqualification of several of the favourites in the Women’s Doubles.
Tennis
Tennis, like Golf, is one of the sports which unfortunately suffers from something of a depleted field at the Games, with many top players choosing to rest following Wimbledon and the French Open, and in advance of the US Open later in the summer.
There are, however, still several superstars of the sport here. None are more famous perhaps than Naomi Osaka, who will represent the host nation and who you might have seen lighting the Olympic Flame at the Opening Ceremony last night! Osaka has a very real shot at Gold, though she will face a tough challenge from newly crowned Wimbledon champion, Ash Barty.
On the Men’s side it is tough to look past Novak Djokovic, especially in the absence of Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. Djokovic is dominating 2021, have won all three Grand Slams held this year. Two-time Olympic champion Andy Murray returns to defend his crown but is recovering from long term injury and is probably a long shot to defend his crown.
I did consider Murray as a potential doubles medallist with his partner Joe Salisbury, who is an excellent doubles specialist. However, they have been handed an extremely hard draw, facing the French number 2 seeds Mahut and Herbert in the first round. Win that, however, and they could go on a run.
One note – the Mixed Doubles is one of the few events I have not yet predicted. This is because, unhelpfully, the IOC have not announced what teams are competing in it yet! I’ll try and remember to post a prediction when the teams/draw is announced on July 27.
Table Tennis
If there is a more dominant nation in an Olympic sport than China is in Table Tennis, I don’t know what it is. They have won 28 of the 32 Gold medals awarded in the sport at the Games and I fully expect them to win all 5 here. In all honesty, the most likely unknown is not which country will win, but which athlete from that country will get the Gold! For the record, I think Ma Long and Chen Meng will take their respective individual titles.
One change at these Games is the addition of a fifth event – mixed doubles – to the four events previously contested. In the team events, look for Germany to try and break what could otherwise be an Asian monopoly on the events.
As ever, let me know your thoughts in the comments!
EDIT – as promised, an updated prediction now that the mixed doubles draw has been made. It’s a bit of an oddity, as the teams have been selected based on the combined rankings of the players, but not just their doubles rankings – singles rankings are considered as well. Which means, for example, the number 2 seeds are the Greek pair of Maria Sakkari and Stefanos Tsitsipas whose combined doubles rank would be 376. But because they are respectively numbers 18 and 4 in the world in singles, they have a ranking for the Olympics of 22! This also means that we will see the unusual sight of Novak Djokovic taking part in a mixed doubles tournament. My predictions are as follows:
Gold – Matteck-Sands/Ram (USA)
Silver – Barty/Peers (Australia)
Bronze – Mladenovic/Mahut (France)
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