Olympics - Venus and Aga gone already !

With the Olympics underway, tournaments in Nanchang and Atlanta have either finished or reached the final stage.

In China, it was success for the home country as Ying-Ying Duan recovered from losing the opening set badly to win her first WTA title, defeating sixth seed American Vania King 1-6 6-4 6-2.  

The final in Atlanta will have the tournament organisers smiling as it features the top two seeds, big serving American John Isner, and exciting controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios.  The local crowd's gain is Rio's loss and the match should provide plenty of big hitting enjoyment.

Isner had to fight back against his younger compatriot Reilly Opelka, after losing the first set tie breaker in their semi final.  Poise and experience told in the end and the top seed won 6-7 6-4 6-2.  Isner won 36 of the 42 points decided on his serve in the final two sets, and that brought too much pressure to bear on his opponent, whose own serve suffered accordingly.

Kyrgios also took three sets to claim victory over a feisty Yoshihito Nishioka.  The Japanese player, ranked just inside the top 100, and spotting Kyrgios 23cm in height, surprised the second seed with his returning capabilities in set two, but either side of that, Kyrgios was rock solid on his delivery, and won 6-3 3-6 6-3.

The first round of singles in Rio De Janeiro has commenced, and most of the results in the men's draw have gone as expected, with perhaps the loss of Jack Sock in straight sets the biggest surprise.  The top three seeds, Djokovic, Murray and Nadal have yet to begin their campaigns.

However, prominent names in the women's singles have been ousted straight away.  Venus Williams will now have more time to devote to doubles having lost to Kirsten Flipkens in round one.  Roberta Vinci is also licking her wounds following another first round exit in an inconsistent year.  The loss to Anna Karolina Schmiedlova wasn't a total shock considering the fairly good year that the Slovakian has enjoyed.  The biggest upset on day one of Olympic tennis was the departure of Aga Radwanska, whose straight sets loss to China's Zheng Saisai opens up the bottom half of the draw, especially for Angie Kerber, her previously likely semi final opponent.

China caused another seed to fall, this time Switerland's main hope Timea Bacsinszky. Zhang Shuai took three sets to convince Timea that she should forget about singles this time and concentrate on helping Martina Hingis win gold in the doubles.  Timea obliged and began the doubles journey with a three set win over the Australian pair - Stosur and Gavrilova.