Tennis at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's doubles
First Olympic men's doubles tennis event with mixed teams.
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The men's doubles was one of two tennis events on the tennis at the 1896 Summer Olympics programme. Six pairs entered, seeded into a single elimination tournament, but only five actually competed. It was the only event in the 1896 Summer Olympics that had mixed teams.
Competition format
Under ancient Greek single-elimination tournament rules, there were no brackets; all participants in a round were paired off, with one bye if a round had an odd number of participants. This could result in a semifinals round with only 3 competitors, as happened in the doubles tennis event. The organizers avoided this problem in the singles tennis by dividing players into groups.
Did You Know?
- None of the leading players of the time, such as Wimbledon champion Harold Mahony, participated.
- The score of the final is not certain; Le Velo gives 5–7, 6–4, 6–1, while Boland's journal has 5–7, 6–3, 6–3.
- The International Society of Olympic Historians gives only five teams; according to them Frank and George Marshall did not participate.
More in Men's Doubles Tennis at the Summer Olympics
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Tennis at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's doubles (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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