Tennis at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's singles


The men's singles competition at the 2004 Summer Olympics was part of the tennis program for the games and was held at the Olympic Tennis Centre in Athens, Greece.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov was the defending gold medalist. He won in 2000 and retired in 2003. Nicolás Massú of Chile defeated Mardy Fish of the United States 6–3, 3–6, 2–6, 6–3, 6–4 in the final to win the Gold Medal in Men's Singles at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Only the final match was best-of-five; all others were best-of-three. Fish won two of the first three sets in the gold medal match.
The major upset in the first round came when Jiří Novák took advantage of Tim Henman's inconsistent play this year, beating him in straight sets. The second round saw some more shock wins, none bigger than world number one Roger Federer's defeat at the hands of world 74th ranked Czech Tomáš Berdych. Former world number one players Juan Carlos Ferrero and Marat Safin's hopes of gold also disappeared as they both made early exits.

Background

The men's singles tournament of the 2004 Summer Olympics was held at the Athens Olympic Tennis Centre in Athens, Greece from 15 to 22 August 2004. Tennis was one of the original sports of the 1896 Summer Olympics. It was withdrawn after the 1924 Summer Olympics due to disagreements between the sport's governing body, the International Tennis Federation, and the independent Olympic organisation, the International Olympic Committee over how to define amateur athletes. The IOC reinstated Tennis to the Olympic programme as a demonstration sport at the 1968 Games and the 1984 Olympics before returning as a full medal sport open to all players at the 1988 Games.

Qualification

Qualification for the single tournament was restricted to four players per National Olympic Committee, an organisation representing a country at the Olympics. National Tennis Associations who were members of the ITF before 1 January 2004 were allowed to nominate players for entry into the competition. The tournament featured a total of 64 players with 48 qualifying on their ITF World Ranking on 14 June and two received invitations from the Tripartite Commission. Any NOC who had more than four players able to qualify by this method were encouraged to choose their highest ranked players eligible to compete in the tournament. The remaining 14 qualified via wild card places: eight were selected on their world ranking and the remaining six were chosen on the basis of his world ranking, whether his country has representation in tennis, the number of players who were in Athens and his geographical location.
Players who earned automatic entry into the draw and who withdrew from the competition due to illness, injury or bereavement before midnight on 7 August were replaced by one from his own country or the next highest ranking entry. Had this not been the case, then the ITF selected the highest ranked nominated player or eligible competitor if a country had more than four players to the tournament.

Preview

Sixteen players were seeded according to their final position in the ITF world rankings by the referee of the competition. The 2003 Wimbledon champion Roger Federer was seeded first, Andy Roddick was the second seed, Carlos Moyá was seed third and Tim Henman was seeded fourth. Martin Verkerk, the 2003 French Open runner-up, sustained a chest muscle injury that required him to withdraw from the tournament. Verkerk was replaced in the draw by Wayne Arthurs. World number three Guillermo Coria had a right shoulder tendinitis injury that made it sore and withdrew from the competition with his place taken by world number 40 Mariano Zabaleta. World number five and 2004 French Open champion Gastón Gaudio aggravated a post-traumatic right heel injury and right shoulder pain playing in the 2004 Cincinnati Masters and became the second Argentine to withdraw from the competition. His compatriot and world number 50 Agustín Calleri replaced him. David Nalbandian, the 2002 Wimbledon runner-up, withdrew with a strained left thigh and he was the third Argentine player to leave the event. Frédéric Niemeyer replaced him in the draw. A right wrist injury caused Irakli Labadze to withdraw from the tournament and Vladimir Voltchkov, a 2000 Wimbledon semi-finalist, replaced him.
Federer was considered by the press as the strong favourite before the tournament. Henman, who had played in two previous Olympic Games, commented on his chances of victory, "Federer goes into the event favourite, there's no doubt about that. And Roddick will fancy his chances on a hard court. But I've beaten both of them this year so, if I can stay healthy and execute my intended game-plan, then there's a chance for me too. I'd be lying if I said I haven't dreamed of winning the gold medal." Roddick used his pre-tournament press conference to state that he wanted to medal at the Olympics and was concerned about his opponent in the first round.

Ranking points

The breakdown of ranking points towards the ATP Rankings is shown below:
ATP Entry Ranking Points
ATP Champions Race Points
The competition was played on hard courts as the best-of-three sets in every match until the gold medal game, which was held to the best-of-five sets.

Round 1

The draw for the first round of the championship was made on 12 August in Building H of the Athens 2004 Conference Room at ATHOC Headquarters. The first round of the competition, in which 64 players participated, took place from 15 to 16 August. Roddick took a 6–3, 7–6 straight sets victory over Flávio Saretta as wild card entrant Arthurs defeated Victor Hănescu 6–4, 7–6. Marcos Baghdatis, the 2003 ITF Junior World champion and a player who received funding from Olympic Solidarity, recovered from one set behind to win 5–7, 7–6, 7–5 over Grégory Carraz.A 6–3, 6–1 triumph came for the fifth seed Juan Carlos Ferrero against Hicham Arazi before Max Mirnyi caused an upset over the 11th seed Juan Ignacio Chela by taking a 3–6, 7–6, 6–4 win. Henman, a silver medallist in the 1996 Olympic doubles event, was the highest placed seed to lose in the first round when he lost to world number 27 Jiří Novák 6–3, 6–3 due to an inconsistent and error-prone play in a 68-minute match that took place in blustery weather.
Marat Safin, a seeded player regarded as one who was in danger of elimination, won the first set of his match against Karol Kučera within 20 minutes. After Kučera played less cautiously in the second set, a break in the fifth game saw Safin claim a 6–0, 6–4 victory. Moyá, the 1998 French Open champion, took almost three hours and a total of five match points in the final two sets of his game against Thomas Enqvist to win 7–6, 6–7, 9–7. Paradorn Srichaphan, the 12th seed, was upset by Joachim Johansson in a 6–3, 6–3 straight sets defeat, and another upset victory occurred when the 13th seed Andrei Pavel lost to Ivo Karlović. Olivier Rochus came from a set behind Mark Philippoussis, who played in his first match in four weeks since after receiving artificial cartilage injections into his left knee, to claim a 3–6, 6–0, 6–1 victory. Philippoussis had tendinitis in his left knee that caused discomfort during the match and affected his movement. Federer took 1¾ hours to defeat Nikolay Davydenko 6–3, 5–7, 6–1. He received an official warning for ball abuse when he struck the ball onto the roof of the centre court in frustration over his play in the second set.

Round 2

The second round occurred on 17 August. Calleri withdrew at this stage of the tournament because of strain to his left abdominal, giving his opponent Igor Andreev a walkover into the third round and no players from Argentina left in the competition. Unseeded player and world number 49 Mardy Fish came from one set and a break point behind to claim a 4–6, 7–6, 6–4 victory over former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero. Fish said of his win, "There were a lot of Spanish people out there cheering for him. So whoever was cheering for me, I was pointing at them." Another second round winner from the United States came in the form of Taylor Dent, who recovered from a slow start to defeat Dominik Hrbatý 7–6, 6–4.
Roddick made 17 aces, 30 winners and 57 unforced errors in coming back from two match points behind and defeating the 2000 silver medallist Tommy Haas 6–4, 3–6, 9–7 in a 2-hour and 19 minute match. Federer was the highest ranked player to lose in the second round when world number 74 Tomáš Berdych beat him 4–6, 7–5, 7–5 due to a poor serve and a series of unforced errors. Berdych said of the victory, "It was everything. This guy won Wimbledon and the Australian Open and now you are the player who beats him. Unbelievable." Moyá defeated Olivier Rochus 6–0, 7–6 and tenth seed Nicolás Massú won 7–6, 6–2 over Vince Spadea.

Medalists

Seeds

Draw

Finals

Top half

Section 1

Section 2

Bottom half

Section 3

Section 4