Veterans suffer Rio tennis medal letdown

Venus Williams, Martina Hingis and Rafael Nadal suffered an Olympic Games tennis last-day letdown Sunday as the tournament prepared for a blockbuster men's final between Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro.

Venus, 36, missed out on her chance to become the first player to win five Olympic tennis golds when she and partner Rajeev Ram were defeated in the mixed doubles final.

They lost 6-7 (3/7), 6-1, 10-7 to US compatriots Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock.

Venus won singles gold at Sydney in 2000 and doubles titles with sister Serena in 2000, 2008 and 2012.

Despite the loss, she is still only the second player to have won five tennis medals after already being guaranteed silver by making the final.

Hingis, 35, and playing her first Olympics since her debut in Atlanta in 1996, saw her gold medal hopes shattered in the women's doubles final.

She and Swiss partner Timea Bacsinszky lost to Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina 6-4, 6-4 as the Russians added Olympic gold to their 2013 French Open and 2014 US Open titles.

Hingis has yet to commit to playing at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo when she'll pushing 40.

"I think if you asked me 10 years ago if I would be here in Rio, I would say you're crazy. Because I didn't play for six years and being able to play for gold is unbelievable," said Hingis who won five Grand Slam singles titles in the 1990s.

Vesnina and lifelong friend Makarova almost didn't make it to Rio due to a series of flight delays and cancellations on their way from the Montreal tournament where they were champions.

It took the pair the best part of four days to get to Brazil, arriving two days before the Olympics started.

"This situation helped us a little bit to get ready for everything in Rio," insisted Vesnina.

"We stick together, we knew what we wanted and it's incredible that we got this gold medal in the end."

Kei Nishikori won Japan's first Olympic tennis medal in almost a century when he captured bronze against Nadal, despite the weary Spaniard mounting a stirring mid-match fightback.

Nishikori triumphed 6-2, 6-7 (1/7), 6-3 to become the first Japanese tennis medallist since Antwerp in 1920 when the country won men's silver and men's doubles silver.

Nadal, the 2008 singles champion in Beijing, was playing his 11th match in Rio.

But the 30-year-old did not go down meekly, fighting back from 2-5 down in the second set to push the play-off into a decider.

The Spanish great won the doubles gold with Marc Lopez on Friday and then lost an epic three-hour singles semi-final to del Potro on Saturday.

Later Sunday, the tournament concludes when del Potro attempts to become the first man to defeat all top three seeds to capture gold.

Del Potro, who contemplated retirement last year after undergoing three wrist surgeries, will tackle defending champion Murray.

The 27-year-old has seen his ranking slip from four in the world to its current 141.

But the 1.98m (6ft 6ins) giant has been rejuvenated in Rio beating world number one Novak Djokovic in the first round before seeing off 2008 Olympic champion Nadal in an epic three-hour semi-final on Saturday.

Murray will become the first player to win two singles golds if he triumphs.