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As this week’s ATP and WTA events wrap up – and next week’s ATP and WTA events get going – the Olympic tournament also begins on Saturday.

It’s a pretty insane crossover part of the schedule.

And hopefully the players still in action the regular Tours will be able to not only get to Paris, but not be too worn out when they get there.

Literally way too much tennis, if you want to know the truth. For all but the true, obsessed diehards.

Nevertheless, we carry on and endeavour to stay across all of the happenings.

Friday’s WTA sked here:

WTA Tour – Friday, July 26, 2024 final results

Friday’s ATP sked here:

ATP Tour – Friday, July 27, 2024 final results

LOADED Saturday at RG

While the men play their ATP Tour finals in Kitzbuhel and Umag, the Olympic event will get under way at Roland Garros.

And the schedule is absolutely loaded.

Here’s the OOP:

Olympic Tennis – Day 1 final results

Just about every Canadian is also in action on Saturday, so get up early as Leylah Fernandez vs Karolina Muchova kicks things off at 6 a.m. EDT. After that: Bianca Andreescu, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Erin Routliffe and Alejandro Tabilo in doubles, and Fernandez and Dabrowski also in doubles.

Quick work from Prague to Paris

The airspace within 150 km Paris is closed at the moment, until the Olympic opening ceremonies are well over. That means both main airports are also closed.

But somehow, despite playing their doubles final on Friday, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova managed to get to Paris.

The doubles final was scheduled at the ungodly hour of 9:30 a.m. – likely just for that purpose.

It’s a quick, direct flight (unlike the other WTA stop in Iasi, Romania). Less than two hours. But given the circumstances you have to think the Czech Olympic federation might have given them a helping hand.

(Nice weather).

Along with the rest of the Czech tennis team, they’re ready.

Karolina Muchova, who reached the final in Palermo last week but didn’t play this week, is the only one who has singles on Saturday – Noon sharp, against Canadian Leylah Fernandez.

The rest of the women only have doubles.

🇨🇿🎾 🤜🏻🤛🏻@olympijskytym #teamwork #jsmejedentym #olympics pic.twitter.com/DALAeVY8Dc
— Barbora Krejcikova (@BKrejcikova) July 26, 2024

Errani the alternate’s alternate

***Errani at Roland Garros in June,supporting doubles partner Jasmine Paolini through wind and rain and all other manner of elements.***

With the very late withdrawal of Elena Rybakina, the scramble was on for an alternate among the athletes already on site.

It wasn’t nearly as dire as on the men’s side, with multiple late withdrawals (and they might not be done yet) and the necessity to dip down into the doubles specialists for warm bodies.

The first up was Aussie Daria Saville, currently ranked No. 77 and scheduled to just play doubles with countrywoman Ellen Perez. But it seems Saville passed.

And so, the spot in the draw to face No. 6 seed Zheng Qinwen goes to … 37-year-old Sara Errani.

Errani was already in the doubles, the No. 3 seeds with Jasmine Paolini after their final at Roland Garros last month and their title in Rome. It will be her fourth Olympic Games. But now, the world No. 95 gets to play singles as well.

Kerber’s last dance

Perhaps the goal was just to come back after giving birth to her first child, a goal and a big motivator to get back in fighting shape. If so, mission accomplished.

But the return to play for Angelique Kerber, somewhat like that of Caroline Wozniacki, wasn’t exactly a rousing success on the results front.

And so, Kerber announced that the Olympic event would be her final one – joining Andy Murray in a career finale on this most august of stages.

We’re all feeling our mortality a little bit right now, aren’t we?

The last dance for Angie 💛

Olympic silver medalist & 3x Grand Slam champion Angelique Kerber has announced that she will retire after the #Paris2024 #Olympics #tennis pic.twitter.com/6yS17UyJJb
— ITF (@ITFTennis) July 25, 2024

After using a protected ranking to play a lot of events, Kerber’s current No. 217 ranking is the best she’s been able to manage since she returned at the start of 2024, after nearly a year and a half away.

The 36-year-old German had a couple of nice runs: a fourth-round at Indian Wells with wins over Ostapenko and Kudermetova. And another fourth round in Rome with a fairly friendly draw. But her other eight tournaments this year have all been first round losses – all of them to quality players. But that’s what you get when you return and mostly only play top-tier events.

So it’s a good decision. And if she goes out in the first round of the Olympic event Saturday, in a night session on Court Philippe-Chatrier to champion Naomi Osaka – well, that’s a top-class way to go out. But you never know.

A rush to get to the Games for Andreeva

Even with the Friday final, it was a calculated risk for any player to squeeze in a clay-court tournament in preparation for the Olympics.

To wit: at about 7:30 p.m. Friday evening in Romania, Russia’s Mirra Andreeva is still waiting to play her singles final against Elena Avanesyan.

It is supposed to clear up eventually. But that’s a late night.

Putting aside that she’ll miss the opening ceremonies in her first Olympics, Andreeva will have to play her first-round singles match on Sunday in Paris. And probably her first-round doubles match with Diana Shnaider as well.

And she has to get there.

Update: 9 p.m. in Romania. Day to evening. And they’re still waiting.

A quick look at flights determines that she won’t have much choice but to leave at the crack of dawn – 5:25 am, with about a 6 1/2 jour journey including a stop in Bucharest. There’s an hour’s time difference, too.

On the plus side, at least there’s no surface change.

Andreeva also has mixed doubles with Daniil Medvedev.

It’s not the ideal way to kick off your first Olympics. Then at her age, she could easily have three more.

Finally under way shortly after 9 p.m.

Murray, on Djokovic and other matters

CNN had Christiane Amanpour do an extensive interview with Andy Murray ahead of his final tournament in Paris. It was sort of a greatest hits of Andy Murray memes.

They got to Novak Djokovic. And unfortunately Amanpour decided to go the trite route.

Murray – who is EXCELLENT at this – set her straight in a hurry.

Then there was the gender equality issue.

Helping push gender equality in tennis “wasn’t something I’d given much thought to,” @andy_murray tells me. But when he took on a female coach, Amélie Mauresmo, he says “there was a big change in attitude” from players and beyond. “It was quite eye-opening for me.” pic.twitter.com/MoxibEgVT1
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) July 25, 2024

It’s always great when tennis gets out of its little paranoid bubble and goes mainstream. But too often, they don’t break new any new ground at all.

New coaches on the job

American Frances Tiafoe has had a rough year, and an uncertain year on the coaching front.

But in Atlanta this week, he has a new man at the controls: longtime WTA Tour coach David Witt.

This is Witt’s third gig of 2024. Dropped rather suddenly by longtime pupil Jessica Pegula at the start of the year, he quickly moved to Team Sakkari.

But Sakkari, who stuck with her previous coach Thomas Hill through thick and thiin for years, didn’t … Hmmm… get the instantaneous results she was looking for, we’re guessing. Even though she made the Indian Wells final, the Miami quarters and the Charleston semis.

Two months later, after the clay-court season and a first-round loss at Roland Garros to Varvara Gracheva, Witt was out.

Other new pairings were the newly retired Steve Johnson with Christopher Eubanks in Newport. (That Johnson didn’t take a set off Eubanks in three career meetings is just a fun wrinkle in the thing).

Another coach who bounced back from a sudden, unexpected firing is American Marc Lucero.

He was dismissed via text in Europe by Amanda Anisimova in early June after starting the season with her.

But last week, he was announced as the new associate men’s coach at USC.

Trojan Family Please Welcome Our Newest Addition to the Men's Tennis Staff, Marc Lucero ✌️

Lucero joins us as the newly added Associate Head Coach after working with numerous pro players including USC alum Steve Johson#FightOn https://t.co/XFBpnMhYtz
— USC Men's Tennis (@USCMensTennis) July 20, 2024

Lucero, a former coach of USC alum Johnson, is a resident of nearby Irvine who also has a young child. After years of scrambling out on Tour in likely not-too-lucrative jobs with non top-10 players, he should thrive in that role – and also have some security.

Linette wins in Prague

The women were way ahead of the men in planning for this week. Even though there were more Olympian men taking part in this week’s tournaments than was the case on the WTA Tour.

And so, on Friday, Magda Linette defeated Magdalena Frech in an all-Polish final in Czechia, with the 32-year-old winning her third career title.

Both Linette and Frech are headed to Paris now, with Linette facing a tough battle of unseededs against Iasi finalist Mirra Andreeva. At least, with both playing Friday, it’s on equal rest.

Frech got a more palatable first-round match against Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova.

Team Bucie in the finals

Hey – North American summer tournaments – do you have a doubles wild card to spare?

Because Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova returned this week in Prague, and made the final.

Safarova has been retired five years and had two kids in the interim. And it took the all-star pairing of Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova to beat them.

Mattek-Sands even broke out her classic “cherries” top for the occasion.

We read they’re looking to play more tournaments. And they have a great resumé together: Australian Open and Roland Garros in 2017. Miami, US Open and more in 2016. Ausralian Open, Roland Garros and… TORONTO!!! in 2015.

Mattek-Sands is even a conservationist when it comes to the kits – this was back in 2017 at Roland Garros.