Games set and match to tennis

Steffi Graf celebrated Olympics gold in 1988

By BBC Sport's Iain Carter

It is a question that comes around with unerring regularity, every four years in fact and somewhere in the months that precede the greatest sporting show on earth; is tennis really worth its place at the Olympic Games?

Now here you are reading the views of a convert, someone who was as happy as the next cynic to shoot down the claims of a sport that spawns millionaires almost as quickly as Michael Johnson whips round an athletics track.

After all tennis players have the vast riches of Wimbledon, the Australian, French and US Opens to play for, so why would they bother chasing the glory of gold?

All the cynicism I once held has been blown away this year.

Anyone who has travelled the tennis world in 2000 cannot have missed the enthusiasm within the sport for the Games.

Barely a post match press conference passes by without a player commenting on how much he or she is looking forward to the Olympic experience.

Pete Sampras - declined the chance to play in Sydney

And it's not just competing, it's experiencing, living life in the athletes village, being an Olympian that is proving the attraction to a group of sportsmen and women who are more accustomed to the largely pampered lifestyle of a touring pro, and surely that is what the Games are all about, whatever the sport.

Tennis was dropped from the Olympics in 1928 and returned as an exhibition event in Los Angeles in 1984 regaining full medal status in Seoul four years later.

There Steffi Graf completed her unique Golden Slam, adding the Olympic title to the four major crowns she won in 1988. The men's crown went to the Slovakian Miloslav Mecir.

His triumph over Tim Mayotte has set something of an Olympic tennis trend of serving up less fancied champions.

Few would have predicted Marc Rosset and Jennifer Capriati gaining men's and women's gold in Barcelona, while Lindsay Davenport, who was still to make her breakthrough at the highest level and the then highly enigmatic Andre Agassi won in Atlanta four years ago.

So to pick the Sydney champions is a tough call, made all the more difficult because the event follows close behind the US Open.

Players who enjoy success in New York will run the risk of jet lag when going for gold.

Tim Henman (right) on his way to Olympics silver with Neil Broad

Of the big names in the men's game only Pete Sampras has decided against playing - surely a decision he'll regret, while in the women's Martina Hingis and Mary Pierce failed to meet the qualifying criteria by not playing sufficient matches in the Fed Cup.

The Williams sisters and Davenport are the players to beat in the women's event, while Agassi will be desperately keen to defend his men's title.

But look at the former winners - players not necessarily consistent on the tour grind, but who find a new level when playing for their country.

Britain has someone who falls into that category - Tim Henman, who won silver in the doubles with Neil Broad in Atlanta and likes the Rebound Ace Hard Courts which will be used in Sydney.

He could just come away with singles gold and if he did few in this country would question the right of tennis to enjoy Olympic status.