Jasmine Paolini Wins Olympic 2024 Gold in Women’s Doubles; Sara Errani Completes Golden Slam with Victory at Paris

Due to the conflict in Ukraine, Russian athletes are technically competing as neutrals at the 2024 Olympics, but on Sunday Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider won a silver in the women’s doubles. This is the first medal for any Russian competitor at the games.

In the match tiebreaker, Andreeva and Shnaider fell to Italy’s Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini 2-6, 6-1, 10-7. Instead of the customary third set in Olympics doubles, there is a first-to-10 tiebreaker.

Russian and Belarusian athletes are compete as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs, abbreviated in French) at the Paris Games. Due to the attack on Ukraine that started in February 2022, those countries were prohibited from participating in team sports at the Paris Games by the International Olympic Committee.

Individual athletes holding passports from Belarus or Russia were permitted to compete as neutrals provided they met the requirements and were granted permission to enter the Olympics.

At the post-match press conference, where both Russian players were wearing simple white T-shirts, Shnaider declared, “I’m not going to answer anything about politics here. I’m here to talk about tennis.”

Upon being asked if the silver medalists would rather compete with the AIN group or with Russia, Andreeva said, “I have no idea how to respond to this.” To be honest, it makes no difference to me. I simply walk outside and play and fight. We also fought and played together this week.

Because it is against the rules for AIN athletes to wear nationality-specific jerseys, Andreeva and Shnaider donned all-white costumes without any Russian flags or other symbols on the court. Shnaider stated earlier in the competition that she was dressing in Paris in the same outfit she wore at Wimbledon last month, where wearing white is required by law.

The first medals earned by AIN competitors at the Paris Olympics were won on Friday by Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya and Ivan Litvinovich, both of Belarus. Bardzilouskaya won the silver medal for ladies, and Litvinovich grabbed the gold for the men. On Saturday, Yauheni Zalati, a Belarusian rower, took home a silver medal.

At the age of seventeen, Andreeva became the second-youngest tennis player to win an Olympic medal. In 1992, Jennifer Capriati won the gold medal in singles for the United States in Barcelona. At the age of sixteen.

At North Carolina State, the 20-year-old Shnaider participated in one season of collegiate tennis. She and Andreeva entered doubles competitions together for the first time at this tournament. In June, Andreeva advanced to the semifinals of the French Open in singles.

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The second-seeded duo of Czech Republic champions Siniakova and Barbora Krejcikova, who are based in Cannes, France, and Shnaider, whose family resides in Moscow, defeated them in the quarterfinals.

Italy won its first gold medal in tennis at the Summer Olympics thanks to Errani and Paolini. In the men’s singles on Saturday, Lorenzo Musetti took home a bronze medal. Since one bronze medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, the two medals are the first for their nation.

With her gold medal from the Olympics and her five Grand Slam doubles titles, which she won with a different partner, Roberta Vinci, at least one at each of the four major tournaments, Errani, 37, completed a career Golden Slam.

Paolini’s professional tennis career is reaching its pinnacle right now. She recently finished second in both the French Open and Wimbledon singles competitions. She and Errani were also the French Open doubles finalists, losing to Coco Gauff and Katerina Siniakova.

After defeating Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-2 earlier on Sunday, Cristina Bucsa and Sara Sorribes Tormo took home the bronze medal for Spain.