Tennis at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's singles

This was the 15th (medal) appearance of the men's singles tennis event. The event has been held at every Summer Olympics where tennis has been on the program: from 1896 to 1924 and then from 1988 to the current program. Demonstration events were held in 1968 and 1984. The number one seed was Novak Djokovic of Serbia, making his third Olympic appearance after reaching the semifinals in 2008 (bronze medal) and 2012 (fourth place), Djokovic had been the winner of the first two majors of the year, the Australian and French Open, and was also the reigning U.S. Open champion. The returning Olympic champion and number two seed was Andy Murray of Great Britain, coming off winning his second Wimbledon title, and his first Davis Cup the previous autumn; he had also been runner-up to Djokovic in Melbourne and Paris. Spain's Rafael Nadal, the 2008 gold medalist who was unable to compete in 2012 due to injury, was the third seed. Sidelined with injury this time was Roger Federer of Switzerland (who, like Djokovic, needed only an Olympic gold for a career Golden Slam, although he had a doubles gold from 2008). 2012 bronze medalist Argentinian Juan Martín del Potro returned, as did quarterfinalists Kei Nishikori of Japan (the fourth seed) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France (fifth seed). Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Lithuania, and Moldova each made their debut in the event. France made its 14th appearance, most among all nations, having missed only the 1904 event. ==Qualification==

Qualification for the men's singles was primarily through the ATP ranking list of 11 June 2016. An additional restriction was that players had to have been part of a nominated team for three Davis Cup events between 2013 and 2016 (with some exceptions). Nations had been limited to four players in the event since the 2000 Games. There were 64 quota places available for men's singles. The first 56 were assigned through the world ranking. There were two Tripartite Commission invitation places and 6 final qualification places allocated by the ITF based on continental and national representation along with world rankings. ==Competition format==

The competition was a single-elimination tournament with a bronze medal match. Matches were in best-of-3 sets, except for the final which was in best-of-5 sets. A tiebreak would be played in all sets reaching 6–6 (previously, no tiebreak would be used in the third set of a non-final match or the fifth set of the final). ==Schedule==

Seeds were based on ATP rankings as of 1 August 2016. (first round) (champion, gold medalist) (semifinals, fourth place) (semifinals, bronze medalist) (second round) (quarterfinals) (second round) (third round) (third round) (quarterfinals) (second round) (quarterfinals) (second round, withdrew due to foot injury) (first round) (third round) (second round) == Draw ==

Players placement onto the table is such that no two players from the same country start within the same quarter section of the table, hence making it impossible for them to meet until the semifinals. This is enabled by the qualification rule that states that no country can bring more than four players for each of the singles tournament. The countries bringing the maximum of four players are Argentina, Australia, France, Italy, Spain and United States. • TRI = Tripartite Invitation • IP = ITF place Finals Top half Section 1 Section 2 Bottom half Section 3 Section 4 ==References==