How many ranking points did Novak Djokovic, Zheng Qinwen, Carlos Alcaraz & other Olympic medalists receive at Paris 2024? All you need to know
The tennis event at the Olympic Games in Paris concluded last Sunday, August 4, with Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Zheng Qinwen of China winning the gold medals in men's and women's singles, respectively. Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and Donna Vekic of Croatia won the silver medals in the above two categories, respectively.
Similarly, the Australian pair of Matthew Ebden and John Peers won the gold at men's doubles, and Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini of Italy won the gold at women's doubles.
Did the medalists, including Djokovic, at the Paris Olympics receive any ranking points for their exploits?
No, currently there is no ranking point on offer for either the ATP or the WTA Tour. Olympic gold medals were previously awarded ranking points from 2000 for men and 2004 for women, but this is no longer the case.
However, the facility to award points at the Olympics was scrapped before the Rio Olympics in 2016. For the last few Olympics, no ranking point has been awarded to the medalists. This means that although Djokovic probably confirmed his status as the greatest tennis player of all time with his gold-medal win in Paris, he earned no ranking points for the same.
ATP and WTA encourage
players to take part in other tournaments while the Olympics is on:
It's worth noting that the Mubadala Citi DC Open took place concurrently with the Olympics this year. As a result, the tournament winners, Sebastian Korda and Paula Badosa, earned a substantial 500 ranking points each.
There can hardly be a bigger glory than standing on the podium at the Olympics. However, somehow, in tennis, it does not do anything to improve a player's ranking. Moreover, there are some other systems prevalent at the Olympics that defy the norms of the game.
For example, if a player withdraws from the singles event at the Olympics, he is replaced by a player already present in the fray in doubles, regardless of the latter’s ranking. This is exactly what happened in case of Jannik Sinner, who had to withdraw owing to an injury and got replaced by Andrea Vavassori, who was ranked 207th in the world.
The fact that Djokovic got to face Matthew Ebden, an out-and-out doubles player, in the first round in singles, also made little sense. Hence, one can safely conclude by saying that the ATP and WTA rankings have no bearing on Olympic seeding, and conversely, Olympic results do not impact a player's ranking position.