The Olympic tennis program has come under fire, as No.1 seed Novak Djokovic questioned the eligibility rules that forced Matt Ebden to replace Andy Murray in the singles draw.
Djokovic tore the Aussie to shreds in a 6-0, 6-1 demolition on Court Philippe-Chatrier - completed just seven minutes shy of the hour mark.
Prioritising his doubles career over the past two years, Ebden's last singles appearance before the Paris Olympics was 706 days ago at the Winston-Salem Open in August 2022.
At one point, the 36-year-old handed his racquet to one crowd member in the second set down 0-4, finding the funny side.
It was viewed as anything but funny for Djokovic, who did not hold back in his post-match press conference.
“I really don’t understand the rules,” the 24-time Grand Slam champion admitted.
“It’s not logical for me that you have someone withdraw from singles and you call up a doubles player to play singles.
“I don’t think it’s a good image for the sport, to be honest. There are lots of singles players that had plenty of time to get here and could have been called to come.
“So this part I don’t get at all. I hope the ITF (International Tennis Federation) and the Olympics change the rule because it was tough on Matt. He hasn’t played singles in two years.”
Having gone viral on social media for his shock reaction to drawing Djokovic, Ebden confirmed his retirement from singles action.
“I wasn’t coming here to play singles put it that way. It has been two years since my last professional singles match. This is officially me retired from singles,” he said.
“What a place to do it, on Chatrier against Novak. I was lucky in my singles career, I played against Federer, Nadal, Murray and played on all the big centre courts around the world.”
ITF rules state that the highest-ranked doubles player automatically replaces any singles withdrawals.
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