Tennis mixed doubles has its moment at the Olympics

The distinction in personalities proved to be a successful formulation in Djokovic’s first aggressive blended doubles match in 15 years.

The Serbians gained their opening two matches in straight units earlier than shedding to the Russian pair of Elena Vesnina and Aslan Karatsev within the semifinals. Then they needed to withdraw from the bronze medal match when Djokovic picked up a left shoulder damage throughout a pair of strenuous singles defeats.

“I’m studying she’s very easygoing on the courtroom,” Djokovic mentioned. “We steadiness one another.”

Stojanovic, who reached the semifinals on the Australian Open and the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in ladies’s doubles this yr, referred to as it “inspiring” sharing the courtroom with Djokovic.

“I’m simply attempting to be in the identical vary as he’s on the courtroom — not less than with the power,” Stojanovic mentioned.

With Olympic medals on the road, there’s been some critical star energy within the 16-team blended doubles match at Ariake Tennis Park.

Most notably, the top-ranked gamers in each males’s and ladies’s singles entered: Djokovic and Ash Barty.

Barty and Australian associate John Friends, who’re good household mates, took the bronze medal courtesy of a walkover due to Djokovic’s damage.

In an all-Russian closing on Sunday, Vesnina and Karatsev will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Andrey Rublev.

Barty and Friends beat the high-profile Greek duo of Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari of Greece within the quarterfinals.

Tstitsipas (No. 4) and Rublev (No. 7) are additionally each ranked within the prime 10 in singles.

Whereas blended occasions are actually turning into the norm on the Olympics with competitions that includes each sexes in swimming, athletics, archery, judo, capturing, desk tennis and triathlon launched at these Video games, tennis blended doubles has a historical past on the Video games relationship again to the beginning of the earlier century.

Charlotte Cooper and Reginald Doherty of Britain gained the primary blended doubles gold on the 1900 Video games in Paris, with Cooper additionally successful in singles to change into the primary girl to win a person gold medal on the Olympics — in any sport.

French nice Suzanne Lenglen gained blended with Max Decugis on the 1920 Antwerp Video games.

Blended was additionally performed on the Olympics in 1912 and 1924 earlier than returning in 2012.

“I want it was promoted extra. It speaks volumes for among the equality points that we face in right now’s world,” mentioned Rajeev Ram, the American who gained silver with Venus Williams in 2016. “The opposite factor is I believe a number of leisure gamers play it rather a lot, so those who doubtlessly watch tennis can relate to it.”

As of late, blended doubles is performed competitively nearly solely on the 4 Grand Slams.

In 2016, there was an all-American Olympic closing that Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock gained over Williams and Ram.

This time, Mattek-Sands teamed with Ram, a childhood pal from Wisconsin. They misplaced within the first spherical.

There was a time when the primary tactic in blended was choosing on the lady. Not anymore, or not less than not when the lady is a doubles specialist — corresponding to Mattek-Sands, who along with Olympic gold has gained 9 Grand Slam titles between ladies’s doubles and blended.

“In the event that they need to choose on me, I’m tremendous pumped as a result of I would like somebody to select on me at internet,” Mattek-Sands mentioned. “I find it irresistible.”

A much bigger situation is perhaps how the boys generally wrestle to return ladies’s serves, which are available at a special tempo and from a special angle than they’re used to.

“The women have fairly good sliders and it’s a special ball than we see a number of the instances,” mentioned Ram, who gained the blended title at this yr’s Australian Open with Barbora Krejcikova. “There’s two components to it: one is the completely different ball and one is the truth that the man is on the internet inflicting some points. So in the event you can handle that recreation, you normally do fairly nicely.”

For some groups, although, techniques are an afterthought.

“There was no technique; there was only a positivity on the courtroom,” Stojanovic mentioned. “We clicked from the beginning and it was simply superb sharing the courtroom with Novak.”

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Related Press reporter Syd Fryer contributed to this report.

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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf

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Extra AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports