Format Changes

This Olympics will see a few changes in format to previous Games. The first major change is that Doubles has been replaced by a teams event. The second change is that the format for the teams event has had a facelift.

Teams Format

A toss is done to decide which team will be ABC and which team will be XYZ. The teams then nominate which positions the players will be, A,B or C. The first two singles games are played with A playing X and B playing Y. After that the fun really starts. The captains can then decide who is going to play the doubles match and who will play the last singles matches. Each player can only play 2 matches so if you decide to play one player in the doubles they are then ruled out of playing the last singles.

Complicated

It is an interesting concept aiming for shorter teams matches while still trying to show the depth of a country and encompassing doubles in the contest. The question is who gets to play 2 singles and who gets to play one singles and a doubles.

I think it is a mish mash of ideas that ends up with a complicated system where a contest can be won by the team captain rather than by the players. How much importance do players really give to doubles as opposed to singles. I think if you asked players to give an importance rating for singles and doubles you would find it came out something like 90 to 10 in favour of singles. How much time do players spend training for singles as opposed to doubles. I think doubles is almost a side show. So why put it in as a crucial factor of a teams event. The previous system of 3 players playing singles only with the top 2 players playing 2 singles and the third player playing one seemed to work just fine.

We shall wait and see how it all pans out. I will give you a further judgment after the Olympics.

Current format for Olympic Teams Matches

Match 1 Singles A vs X

Match 2 Singles B vs Y

Captain chooses DBL pair. 5 minutes break

Match 3 Doubles C + A or B vs Z + X or Y

5 minutes break

Match 4 Singles A or B (non-playing Doubles) vs Z

Match 5 Singles C vs X or Y (non playing Doubles)