Quick Guide: Tennis

China will welcome the best tennis players in the world this summer when the Olympics get under way in August. Men's and women's tournaments will be held in singles and doubles on artificial turf in Beijing. Unlike some other major world sports, Olympic tennis welcomes professionals with men competing over five-set games and women over three. Sixty-four athletes compete in the singles tournaments of which 34 qualify directly via their world ranking. The doubles competitions contain 32 pairs with 10 qualifying automatically. When the directly-qualified players are confirmed the remaining places are decided by the International Tennis Federation.

All Olympic tennis competitions are decided on a knockout basis. Each nation may enter a maximum of six singles players and four doubles teams, who are put in different sections of the draw. For the singles competition 16 players are seeded, while the doubles draw includes eight seeded teams.

Men's and women's singles (draws of 64); Men's and women's doubles (draws of 32) - a country can have a maximum of 6 men and 6 women.

Olympic Green Tennis Centre