Tennis Day 8 Preview: Three gold medals up for grabs on final day

(BEIJING, August 17) -- Several players and their NOCs stand to make history when the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Tennis competition concludes on Sunday, August 17, with the gold medal match in Men's Singles and the gold and bronze medal matches in both Women's Singles and Women's Doubles.

Men's Singles gold medal match

Rafael Nadal of Spain will play Fernando Gonzalez of Chile. The two have met six times and have three wins apiece. Gonzalez has won both of their matches on hard court. Their last meeting was at Hamburg in 2007, which Nadal won in straight sets.

This is Nadal's second Olympics, but he played only Doubles at Athens 2004.

Nadal has been ranked No. 2 in the world for more than three years, but will take over the No. 1 spot on August 18. This year he won his fourth consecutive French Open title and his first Wimbledon trophy.

Nadal is bidding to win Spain's first gold medal in Tennis.

Spain will win its 10th and 11th medals in Tennis today. Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual are also in the Women's Doubles final.

Gonzalez is ranked No. 15 in the world and has won two titles this year. He will upgrade his Olympic medal from bronze in Athens to either silver or gold in Beijing. In Athens he won two of Chile's first three Olympic medals in Tennis, defeating Taylor Dent of the United States in the bronze medal match and teaming with Nicolas Massu of Chile to win the Doubles gold.

Gonzalez is aiming to follow countryman Massu as Olympic Men's Singles champion.

Women's Singles gold medal match

Dinara Safina of Russia leads teammate Elena Dementieva 5-2 in their head-to-head series. This is their fourth meeting this year and Safina has won all of the previous three.

Dementieva also played in Athens, where she lost in the first round to eventual bronze medalist Alicia Molik of Australia, so this is her third Games. Safina is making her Olympic debut.

Having won the silver medal in this event in Sydney, Dementieva is just the fourth woman to win a medal in Singles at more than one Olympic Games, after Kathleen McKane of Great Britain, Steffi Graf of Germany and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain.

Women's Singles bronze medal match

Russia could become the first NOC to win all three medals in any discipline of an Olympic Tennis event since Great Britain did so in the 1908 Women's Singles. That scenario is based on Vera Zvonareva of Russia defeating Li Na of China in the bronze medal play-off match.

Zvonareva and Li have met three times, Li winning twice. Zvonareva won their most recent meeting at Doha this year.

Zvonareva is ranked No. 11, though she attained a career-high ranking of No. 9 in August 2004.

Li is ranked No. 43, though she missed a large part of the year after undergoing right-knee surgery at the end of March, returning in mid-June.

China has never won a medal in this event. In 2004, Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won the first Tennis medal for China when they took gold in Women's Doubles in Athens.

Women's Doubles gold medal match

The Olympic final pits the reigning French Open champions Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain against the reigning Wimbledon champions Serena Williams and Venus Williams of the United States.

The Williams sisters won the Women's Doubles gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. They are bidding to become the second Women's Doubles team to win two gold medals in this event after Gigi Fernandez and Mary Jo Fernandez of the United States.

Ruano Pascual has guaranteed herself a second silver medal, having lost in the gold medal match in Athens to Li Ting and Sun Tiantian of China.

Women's Doubles bronze medal match

Yan Zi and Zheng Jie of China face Alona Bondarenko and Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine.

The Bondarenko sisters won the pairs' only meeting in 2005.

Yan and Zheng won the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006, becoming the first Chinese players to win a Grand Slam title.

The Bondarenko sisters won the 2008 Australian Open Doubles title. Ukraine has never won an Olympic Tennis medal.

The Men's and Women's Tennis tournament at the Beijing Olympics will continue on Sunday, August 17.