In one of the most shocking results of the 2016 Olympics to date, defending gold medalists Venus and Serena Williams lost in the first round of the women’s doubles tennis tournament. Lucie Šafářová and Barbora Strýcová of the Czech Republic dominated the Williams sisters from the start, winning 6-3, 6-4 in straight sets. The top two men’s singles players, John Isner and Sam Querrey, opted to the skip the Olympics, which does not offer points or prize money, to focus on the U.S. hard-court swing that culminates with the U.S. Open later this month.
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In the last match to completed on the first day of play, Tsonga’s countryman Gael Monfils joined him in the second round, the No. 6 seed enjoying a comfortable 6-1 6-3 win against Vasek Pospisil of Canada.
After that loss, Venus Williams did not meet with reporters, but the women’s Olympic tennis coach, Mary Joe Fernandez, said that Venus Williams had been sick since before arriving in Brazil and had been battling cramping, dehydration and an upset stomach after Saturday’s defeat. (Neither had been in the aforementioned 2012 gold-medal match.) Only once this century had the sisters been eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam. “But we’re really, also, I wouldn’t say it’s devastating”. “Today was not our best day as a team”, she said, looking into the distance.
“We honestly didn’t play our best whatsoever tonight”. We played awful and that basically showed in the results.
“We honestly didn’t play our best whatsoever tonight”, Serena said.
After Williams beat Cornet at the Beijing Olympics, she lost in the next round to Elena Dementieva of Russian Federation.
But the size of crowds did not bother Japan’s Kei Nishikori, who opened the men’s singles tennis tournament on centre court by knocking out Spain’s Albert Ramos-Viñolas easily, winning 6-2 6-4 in two sets. They won Wimbledon doubles this year, and will play the U.S. Open. She’s now won 19 of her past 20 matches.
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Williams is the first tennis player to participate in singles at five Olympics, and never had failed to reach at least the third round before, claiming a gold at the 2000 Sydney Games.
