OLYMPIC HISTORY

Tennis formed part of the inaugural modern Olympic Games in 1896 and lasted until the 1924 Games in Paris. The trend for players to turn professional, a clash of dates with Wimbledon and arguments about the rulebook saw the sport drop out of the Games until 1984, when demonstration matches were played in Los Angeles. Tennis returned to the Olympic fold as an official sport in 1988, when professional players were allowed to take part.

As such, the likes of Billie Jean King, Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver never had a chance to become Olympic champions, while the likes of Martina Navratilova were ruled ineligible by her own US federation because she did not wish to compete in the Federation Cup.

Between 1896 and 1924, British players won 16 gold, 13 silver and 16 bronze medals and, as such, will remain at the top of the historic tennis medal table for at least a couple more Games to come despite Britain's lowly rating in world tennis.

Stars of those early years included Charlotte Cooper, who in 1900 became the first woman to win an Olympic title in any sport, the 1896 competition having been restricted to men. Cooper had won three Wimbledon titles by the time she lifted the Olympic crown and went on to win two more All England championships.

Most famous among women champions were Suzanne Lenglen, of France, in 1920 and Helen Wills (later Wills Moody) in 1924. Both went on to become multiple Wimbledon champions and are legends in the history of tennis.

John Pius Boland, of Ireland, was the first male champion, beating Dionysios Kasdaglis 6-3, 6-1, despite the fact that his trip to Athens was for an archaeological dig. A Greek friend of Boland's, Thrasyvoalas Manaos, was a member of the organising committee of the Games and managed to get Boland into the tournament.

The rebirth of Olympic tennis in 1988 saw victories go to Miloslav Mecir of Czechoslovakia, over America's Tim Mayotte, and Steffi Graf, of Germany, over Gabriela Sabatini, of Argentina. In 1988, Graf, who had won the 1984 demonstration event as a 15-year-old, not only won the Olympic title but every grand-slam title.

In 1996, the singles titles went to Lindsay Davenport and Andre Agassi, both of the US. Agassi claimed an Olympic link; his father competed in the Games as a boxer for Iran. He can now claim another; he is the partner of a fellow Olympic champion, Graf, who stated tearfully after her 1988 victory: "I have never felt so emotional at any other tournament. This was really special fo me." Her sentiment was similar 11 years on when she won the French Open, her final grand-slam title, before retiring.

The world's top players are almost all expected to compete in Sydney. Among men, local favourites are Pat Rafter and Mark Philippoussis; Agassi will defend is title, while Tim Henman, of Great Britain, will look for an improvement in recent form. Among women, Davenport will defend her crown as she takes on the likes of Venus Williams, the fellow American who defeated her to take the Wimbledon title this year. Martina Hingis, of Switzerland, is also a favourite to win.