During an Olympic year, the road to Roland Garros is the final stop for players looking to qualify for the Olympics. On the heels of 2024 Roland Garros, the ranking cutoff deadline for the Paris Olympics, national federations announced official roster decisions for singles and doubles.
For countries like the U.S., which has a significant depth of talent in singles and doubles on the men’s and women’s tour, the Olympics roster decision is a higher stakes process with many top players vying for a limited number of spots. Following Roland Garros, the USTA announced an incredibly strong U.S. Olympics squad featuring many of the usual suspects at the helm of American tennis.
The announcement also came with controversy and criticism, as a few notable absences left tennis fans with more questions than answers.
Introducing Team USA for 2024 Paris Olympics
The 11 Americans chosen to represent Team USA at the Olympics includes a stacked lineup of three top 10 singles players, six top 20 singles players, and four top 20 doubles players. Four of the 11 players – Coco Gauff, Desirae Krawczyk, Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram – are grand slam champions who have won a combined 13 major titles. Additionally, all four women on the Olympic singles roster are in the top 15 WTA rankings.
To her surprise, Coco Gauff was chosen to be the Olympics flag bearer for Team USA alongside Lebron James. Ram, the most experienced Olympian on Team USA, enters his third Olympic games and was a silver medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games with Venus Williams.
Team USA: Women
- No. 2 Coco Gauff (1st Olympics)
- No. 5 Jessica Pegula (2nd Olympics; Tokyo 2021)
- No. 9 Danielle Collins (1st Olympics)
- No. 15 Emma Navarro (1st Olympics)
- Doubles:
- No. 1 Coco Gauff/Jess Pegula
- No. 4 Danielle Collins/Desirae Krawczyk (1st Olympics)
Team USA: Men
- No. 11 Taylor Fritz (1st Olympics)
- No. 13 Tommy Paul (2nd Olympics; Tokyo 2021)
- No. 38 Marcos Giron (1st Olympics)
- No. 105 Chris Eubanks (1st Olympics)
- Doubles:
- No. 4 Taylor Fritz/Tomy Paul
- No. 5 Rajeev Ram/No. 19 Austin Krajicek (3rd Olympics for Ram, 2nd Olympics for Krajicek)
Team USA: Mixed Doubles
- No. 3 Coco Gauff & Taylor Fritz
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Notable Team USA Absences
Among the notable absences in singles includes No. 14 Madison Keys on the women’s side, who finished 4th place at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and a trio of top players on the men’s side who each declined to play: No. 14 Ben Shelton, No. 23 Sebastian Korda, and No. 29 Frances Tiafoe.
Each of the singles players above would have qualified by ranking but declined the Olympics invitation to focus on preparation for the U.S. Open summer hardcourt swing and to play at the Citi Open in Washington D.C. during the same week as the calendar.
There are also a few notable absences in the doubles lineup, though not by choice. The doubles lineup decision making process was a different story.
USTA Overlooks Top American Women’s Doubles Player for Olympics
The most controversial lineup selection came with women’s doubles when Nicole Melichar-Martinez, who was the highest-ranked American doubles player at the time at No. 9, was left off Team USA’s roster. According to ITF Olympic qualification rules, doubles players ranked inside the top 10 qualify automatically so long as their country selects them to participate.
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As it turned out, the USTA didn’t select Melichar-Martinez for its lineup. After many tennis fans were disappointed with the decision to exclude her or wondered if she chose not to play, Melichar-Martinez shared a statement clarifying that she was willing and eager to represent Team USA if given the opportunity. But she wasn’t.
The USTA announced Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff as the first doubles team, which was expected due to Gauff and Pegula’s successful partnership over the past few seasons. Their doubles resume includes five WTA titles, 2022 Roland Garros finalists, and back-to-back top 8 appearances at the WTA Finals in 2022-2023. Gauff also recently won her first doubles major at 2024 Roland Garros with Katerina Siniakova.
Team USA’s second doubles team was more of a tossup, however. The USTA announced the pairing of No. 11 Desirae Krawczyk alongside good friend Danielle Collins.
Krawczyk was a well-deserved pick due to her success in both women’s doubles and mixed doubles. A staple at the top of the WTA doubles landscape for the last several years, she owns 10 WTA doubles titles, reached a career-high ranking of No. 8 last summer, and has qualified for the WTA Finals for three consecutive seasons from 2021-2023.
Given her accomplished mixed doubles resume, she also would have been a strong medal contender in the mixed doubles field had she been selected. Krawczyk has won four mixed doubles majors and finished runner-up at both Australian Open and Roland Garros alongside Neal Skupski this year.
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Collins has enjoyed an incredible 2024 season on tour in singles, winning back-to-back titles in Miami and Charleston and cracking the top 10 in her last year on tour. Meanwhile, she hasn’t played a doubles match since February.
Although she was more of a surprise doubles addition, the decision didn’t come completely out of left field. Collins and Krawczyk are good friends with natural on-court chemistry which has led to a few standout doubles results in recent years.
They won the doubles title together at the 2023 Charleston Open and also advanced to the semifinals at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships. Collins’ aggressive baseline game also complements Krawczyk’s all-court doubles style and IQ.
We sat down with her last year in Charleston, where she talked about her love for doubles.
Underlying Issues Remain in the Olympics Selection Process
While Team USA will field two strong women’s doubles teams who will be among the top medal contenders, bigger issues remain in the politics of the selection process. Nicole Melichar-Martinez summed up it well in her statement:
I can’t think of another sport where it is possible to be No. 1 in your country and top 10 in the world and not secure a spot on your team.
Nicole Melichar-Martinez
Melichar-Martinez’s partner, Ellen Perez, also weighed in on the conversation, supporting her partner and calling for changes in the Olympics criteria decision.
“If there was a clear criteria and way to qualify yourself then no one would have the right to complain if they weren’t selected. Make it #1 in the world for all I care but you have to give athletes the chance to qualify themselves and avoid politics and discretionary decisions.
Ellen Perez
In addition to Melichar-Martinez, another worthy doubles selection could have been Desirae Krawczyk’s current doubles partner, Caroline Dolehide. Now at a career-high ranking of No. 18, Dolehide and Krawczyk put together a strong clay court season with back-to-back semi-final runs in Rome and Paris (the same surface where the Olympics is played). They also advanced to the Wimbledon doubles semi-finals.
Taylor Townsend, an accomplished top doubles player who recently won her first major at Wimbledon with Katerina Siniakova, was also a likely Olympics doubles candidate but unfortunately injured herself the week before Roland Garros and fell out of the top 20 during the ranking cutoff. She is now back inside the top 10 at No. 7, and currently the highest ranked American in doubles.
History Repeats Itself with Doubles Decisions
When a country like the U.S. can include up to six players on its roster, why only select five and leave off your top doubles player who technically qualified by merit?
Melichar-Martinez, Dolehide, and Townsend are all accomplished doubles players who deserved selection, but they aren’t singles stars or necessarily household names in tennis.
It’s a shining example of decision-makers overlooking top doubles players in place of preferential treatment for the top singles players and those on the federation’s favorites list (whether or not they are the best candidates to play doubles).
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened. At the 2022 Davis Cup Finals, former Davis Cup captain Mardy Fish excluded Rajeev Ram from the doubles lineup ironically after Ram had won the U.S. Open and become world No. 1 a few months prior.
Fish, who alluded to Ram not fitting in the mold of the team, received plenty of criticism for his decision which many interpreted as that Ram wasn’t in the Davis Cup “Boys Club.” The U.S. team lost the doubles rubber and fell in the first round. Soon after, the USTA and Fish “mutually agreed to part ways” and removed Fish from his captaincy role.
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Former WTA doubles No. 1 Lisa Raymond also faced a similar scenario ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Although she was ranked No. 1 at the time, Captain Billie Kean King excluded Raymond and instead chose the Williams sisters to play together.
At that time, each country was only allowed one doubles team, so the decision was made in a different context. To their credit, Venus and Serena went on to capture the doubles gold medal in Sydney (and again in 2008 Beijing and 2012 London).
Raymond, outraged from being kept on the sidelines, filed an arbitration against the U.S. Olympic Committee but it was eventually turned down. Venus and Serena finished their careers with 14 career doubles majors together.
Rooting for Team USA in Paris
With five singles players in the top 20 and six doubles players inside the top 30, lineup depth is a great problem to have for American tennis. It also makes it incredibly difficult and subjective for captains to pick their rosters.
Inevitably, when so many top players are fighting for a finite number of spots, someone will be left out. Roster decisions and politics aside, let’s cheer for the incredibly strong American men’s and women’s teams we have heading into the Paris Olympics.
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When this Olympics is all said and done, I hope that the ITF and national federations reconsider the entry rule for doubles players to avoid gray areas and let players qualify based on their own merit, similar to singles qualification. It shouldn’t be left to the discretion of politicking and playing favorites by decision-makers from national federations.
In the meantime, I’ll be rooting for Team USA to bring home medals in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Cheers to the red, white, and blue competing at Roland Garros in Paris this summer.
Putting my emotions aside, I can only give my biggest support to Team USA and wish them the best of luck. Bring home the gold, ladies!
Nicole Melichar-Martinez
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