The tennis tournaments at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London were staged at the All England Club in Wimbledon, from 28 July to 5 August. This was the first Olympic grass court tournament since tennis was reintroduced as an Olympic sport and the first to be held at a Grand Slam venue in the Open era. (Two other 2012 Summer Olympic bid finalists had also offered Grand Slam venues - second-place finisher Paris offered the French Open venue, the Stade Roland Garros, while fourth-place finisher New York offered the US Open venue, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens.)
A total of 190 players competed in five events: singles and doubles for both men and women and, for the first time since 1924, mixed doubles were officially included. The Olympic tennis events were run and organised by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and were part of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tours. As a side effect, the regular rule imposed by the All England Club during The Championships calling for all-white player clothing was waived to allow players to wear Olympic national team clothing, and London 2012 bunting also mixed with the traditional Wimbledon green.
Neither of the defending singles champions competed, since Elena Dementieva had retired from professional tennis in 2010 and Rafael Nadal withdrew due to tendinitis.
In the women's singles tournament, Serena Williams defeated Maria Sharapova while losing only one game in the final for the gold medal and her sixth major event win at Wimbledon, having won the ladies' singles tournament at The Championships less than three weeks earlier as well as in 2002, 2003, 2009 and 2010. She also defended her women's doubles title alongside her sister Venus Williams, who had won singles gold in Sydney in 2000. With her singles gold, she became the second female player to win a career singles Golden Grand Slam or simply "Golden Slam" - Olympic gold in addition to the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, with the first being Steffi Graf in 1988 after she won all five events that year (a feat not yet matched by another player, male or female.) Serena also became the first player in history, male or female, to win the career Golden Grand Slam in both singles and doubles (the Williams sisters had already completed their career doubles Golden Grand Slam at the 2001 Australian Open, joining Pam Shriver in Seoul in 1988 and Gigi Fernandez at the 1993 Australian Open.) Furthermore, the Williams sisters also became the first four-time gold medalists in Olympic tennis history.
In the men's singles tournament final, Andy Murray beat Roger Federer in straight sets front of a home crowd to avenge his four-set loss against Federer exactly four weeks earlier on the very same Centre Court in the Wimbledon final. In doing so, he denied Federer the chance to become the third man to win a career singles Golden Grand Slam after Nadal in Beijing in 2008 and Andre Agassi at the 1999 French Open. More importantly, he became the first British man to win singles tennis gold since Josiah Ritchie in 1908 (also at Wimbledon) and the first to win a major event at Wimbledon since Fred Perry won The Championships in 1936. The following year, Murray went on to break the British gentlemen's singles drought at The Championships after a defeat of Novak Djokovic, who he had beaten in the Olympic semifinals (having first beaten Djokovic to win the US Open the previous fall, also the first Grand Slam singles title for a British man since 1936.)
Meanwhile, the Bryan brothers (Mike and Bob) took the men's doubles gold for the United States and themselves completed a career Golden Grand Slam, joining the Australian "Woodies" (Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde, who completed their set at the 2000 French Open) and Canada's Daniel Nestor at Wimbledon in 2009. Also, the Belorussian top seeds of Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi took the mixed doubles gold after overcoming Murray and Laura Robson mere hours after Murray had defeated Federer.
The 2012 Olympic tournament was the fourteenth edition of tennis at the Olympics (excluding the two Olympics, 1968 and 1984, when tennis was a demonstration event), and the seventh since 1988, when tennis was officially brought back into the Olympic Games. Mixed doubles was an official Olympic event for the first time since 1924, when Hazel Wightman and Richard Williams of the United States won the gold medal, and was played for the first time since it was played as a demonstration event in 1968.
The 2012 edition was played on grass courts at the All England Club, three weeks after the end of the Wimbledon tournament. Sessions ran from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. as established by the All England Club policy. However, the All England Club along with other organizers not only allowed but encouraged the players to wear their national colours as opposed to predominantly white clothes in accordance with typical Wimbledon tradition, and the normally all-green grounds were also decked out in purple and multi-coloured London 2012 Olympic branding.
Twelve courts were used for the matches including Centre Court, No.1 and No.2. No.3 Court was used for warm ups. The Olympic tennis events were organised jointly by the ITF, the IOC and the All England Club. Both the men's and women's singles and doubles events count as a part of the 2012 ATP World Tour and the 2012 WTA Tour.