Doubles, Women

A succession of injuries over the previous 12 months had meant that the defending champions Serena Williams and Venus Williams were unseeded for the Olympic tournament but in truth everybody knew that, providing both were fit and ready, they would be the team to beat. If the Williams’ sisters run to the gold wasn’t quite as imperious as Serena’s singles campaign, it mattered little and the pair won every set they contested without the need of a tie-break in any one of them. Their victims in the final were the Czech pair of Andrea Hlaváčková and Lucie Hradecká who had upset the top seeded American pairing of Liezel Horn-Huber and Lisa Raymond at the semi-final stage. This was the 3rd doubles victory for the Williams clan at the Olympic Games following their wins in 2000 and 2008, a record for the event, and leaves them as the most successful Olympic tennis players of all time. They took their total of Olympic gold to four each which is either an outright Olympic tennis record or puts them level with Max Decugis depending on your view of the status of the 1906 Games.