Tennis at The 2008 Summer Olympics - Qualification

Qualification

The majority of players in the singles competitions (56 of 64 players in the draw) gained entry through their position in either the ATP (men) or WTA (women) rankings. The remaining eight places were given to six players who gained ITF places (wild cards) and two who received invitations from the Tripartite Commission, which were intended to go to National Olympic Committees (NOCs) with small teams. For the doubles competitions, 10 players qualified directly. The remaining 86 places were allocated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) based on world singles rankings. This method of allocating doubles places angered some players, such as Leander Paes, and led to some perceived discrepancies: Martin Damm and Pavel Vízner of the Czech Republic, ranked eighth in the ATP Race, were not seeded, whereas Nicolás Almagro and David Ferrer of Spain, who were highly ranked in singles but had not played doubles together before, were seeded fifth.

In the doubles, as in every team event at the Olympics, athletes had to compete on the side of athletes from the same NOC. This method of forming teams meant that Canadian world number one Daniel Nestor had to find a new partner (his partner at the time was Serb Nenad Zimonjić) and led one South African player, Liezel Huber, to seek U.S. citizenship so that she had the opportunity to play. Each NOC could submit a maximum of 6 players; this sextet could be composed of a maximum of four singles players and four doubles players (two teams).

The rankings of July 9 were used to determine the direct entrants. A number of tournaments, including the prestigious Wimbledon Championships took place between this date and the time of the Games beginning, and some players re-entered the qualification places during this time. Rainer Schüttler, who was propelled up the rankings by his semi-final appearance at Wimbledon, went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won his right to play at the Olympics, provoking a hostile response from the ITF, as it was a deviation from their original regulations.