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Although it was removed from the Olympic program after the 1924 Games and did not return as a medal sport until Seoul in 1988, tennis was a part of the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

Australia did not have an official team in 1896 - it was not even a federated nation - but it did have a representative at that first Olympic tennis event.

Edwin Flack had travelled to the Games from England with the vague idea of competing on the track.

He did this with great success, winning both the 1,500 metres and 800 metres events, in the process becoming the first Australian Olympic medallist.

But Flack's friend George Robertson, who'd travelled with him to the Games, convinced the Australian to enter the tennis tournament.

In the Australian Olympic Committee's official history "Australia and the Olympic Games", author Harry Gordon says Flack had shown no special aptitude for the game, and it showed in his results.

Competing on the morning of his 800m final, Flack lost his singles match and then, paired with Robertson presumably as a quasi-British team, enjoyed no more success in the doubles.

Little could Flack have known that he was beginning a tradition carried on most successfully and recently by the Woodies, Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge, winners of the doubles gold medal at the Atlanta Games.

The winner of the men's singles and doubles titles at the 1896 Athens Games had a similarly casual approach to Flack. Irishman John Boland only entered the event because he was in Athens at the time on an archaeological expedition.

So "que sera sera" was his attitude that he did not even realise until decades later that his efforts had made him a dual Olympic medallist.

Given that the first lawn tennis club was only formed in 1872, it is testimony to its popularity that it featured at Athens just 26 years later.

But the sport's roots can be traced much further back than that.

Real, or royal, tennis was popular in France around the 10th century. Those early versions of the sport didn't even feature rackets and had more in common with the schoolyard game of handball than modern tennis.

It took until the 1500s for a racket made from wood and strung with animal gut to be developed, but the game didn't really resemble modern tennis until the second half of the 19th century, by which time it was becoming popular in Britain.

By 1877 a variant closely related to the modern game had been developed. In this year the All-England Croquet Club hit on a novel idea: they would hold a lawn tennis tournament to raise money for the club.

Thus Wimbledon, the most famous and prestigious tennis tournament in the world, was born. It's unclear how much money was raised for the croquet club, but the legacy of that fundraiser lives on.

When tennis began at Olympic level in 1896, the only two events available were the men's singles and men's doubles.

Women's singles was added in 1900 and mixed doubles, which has not been part of the program since the sport was reintroduced to the Olympics, was also played.

Between 1896 and the sport's demise as an Olympic sport in 1924, Britain won 16 gold, 13 silver and 16 bronze medals. That record makes it the most successful tennis nation in Olympic history and will take some overhauling.

Kitty McKane won five of those 16 British gold medals. Another was won by Charlotte Cooper who became the first woman to win an Olympic title in any sport when she took gold in the women's singles in 1900.

The rise of the professional game played a prominent role in the demise of tennis at an Olympic level.

The other flaw in the planning for the 1928 Games was a clash with the Wimbledon tournament, then seen as the pinnacle of the sport.

Professionalism also dogged tennis when the sport was reintroduced to the Games in 1988.

There was a strong feeling among many critics that the huge pay cheques earned by professional tennis players put them at odds with the traditional amateur ethos of the Olympic movement.

To start with, many of the players seemed to agree. Most skipped the Seoul Olympics, preferring to compete at professional tournaments held at the same time.

But the comments of those who did attend, and took home medals, began to win others around.

Gold medallists Boris Becker, Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi paid tribute to the Olympic tennis tournament, saying it was a special feeling to be competing for their countries rather than as individuals.

Australian doubles pair Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge expressed similar sentiments after Atlanta.

Woodforde said the pair thought the experience would be like "just another tournament" before the event, and he was surprised by the emotion their gold medal winning performance inspired in him.

Woodforde also said he treasured the opportunity to mix with other athletes in the athletes' village in Atlanta.