Alpen gold

While pondering how high on my crap list I should put Novak Djokovic for his sore-loser behavior at the Olympics (conclusion: not too high), I did keep an eye on the tennis events in which he wasn't involved.

Belinda Bencic of Switzerland (pictured), seeded ninth, won the gold medal in women's singles. She defeated Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic in the final match. Bencic is the first woman ever to win a gold medal in tennis for Switzerland. The bronze went to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, who fought back to defeat Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina.

The women's doubles gold was won by the 'ovás from the Czech Republic: Kateřina Siniaková and Barbora Krejčíková. They handled Bencic and teammate Viktorija Golubic pretty easily. The bronze went to Brazil!  Luisa Stefani and Laura Pigossi outlasted Elena Vesnina and Veronika Kudermetova from The Team Formerly Known as Russia. It took three sets, the last of which was a long tie-breaker.

The men's doubles saw an all-Croatia gold medal match. Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić bested Marin Čilić and Ivan Dodig. The bronze medal was won by New Zealand. Michael Venus and Marcus Daniell topped Austin Krajicek and Tennys Sandgren, of the good ol' USA, in straight sets. Sorry, 'Murika, no tennis medals. But we're still big in cornhole!

In the Djoker Aftermath Department, Sascha Zverev of Germany went on to stomp Karen Khachanov of You-Know-Where for the men's singles gold. In the mixed doubles, it was all You-Know-Where at the top. The gold went to Andrey Rublev and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who prevailed over Aslan Karatsev and Elena Vesnina in a drawn-out three-set match.

In sum, the gold in tennis went to Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Don't-Call-It-Russia. Silver: Don't-Call-It-Russia (2), Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Croatia. Bronze: Spain (Pablo Carreno Busta), Ukraine, Brazil, New Zealand, and Australia (Ash Barty and John Peers). As diverse as the fields may have been going into the tournament, it wasn't a particularly diverse group on the medal stands, that's for sure.