Singles, Women

For the singles qualification, the world ranking list was used with a maximum of two players per nation. Players who did not participate in any of the qualification tournaments were eliminated from the list. The 22 best players qualified for Rio with 40 more places being awarded to players from continental qualification tournaments. These included six players each from both Africa and Latin America, 11 each from Asia and Europe, and three each from both North America and Oceania. The remaining eight players received wild card entries, including players from the host nation.

In Rio, the 12 lowest ranked players on the world ranking took part in a preliminary round with six progressing to the first round and they were then joined by the players ranked 33-70 on the word list. In the second round the first round winners met players 17-32 in the world rankings, and It was not until the third round that the world’s 16 best ranked players joined the tournament and further elimination matches took place.

All matches were played to the best-of seven, with the first to win four sets taking the match. Netherlands’ Jiao Li was the eldest player at the age of 43 years, and Sally Yee from the Fiji Islands was the youngest at 15 years of age. [Ding Ning] won the gold medal in a very close final against her team-mate Li Xiaoxia, by four sets to three: 11-9, 5-11, 14-12, 9-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7. Prior to the final, Ding Ning had lost only one set in the entire competition, losing the second set of her semi-final against Kim Song-I of North Korea.