The players on the eight teams at this week’s Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Shenzhen are playing for a trophy, and they are also banking something that matters two years from now. Under the eligibility rules for tennis at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, nobody can play the Olympic event without having been part of a nominated Davis Cup or Billie Jean King Cup team at least twice during the Olympic cycle, and at least once in 2027 or 2028. The same applies to the men who will contest the Davis Cup Final 8 in Bologna.
The rules are set out in the ITF document Eligibility for the Olympic Tennis Event – LA28, in the version dated July 2026. The document now uses the governing body’s World Tennis name and refers to the World Tennis Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup Regulations. It sits alongside, and is separate from, the qualification system that decides who gets the places in each draw, which we cover in Olympic Tennis Explained.
The five conditions
To be nominated for and take part in the LA28 tennis event, a player must meet all five of the following, unless the rules provide otherwise:
- The Olympic Charter. The player must comply with it, including Rule 41 on the nationality of competitors.
- Good standing. The player must be in good standing with their national association and the governing body under the Davis Cup or Billie Jean King Cup Regulations in force at the time of the Games.
- Eligibility to represent the nation. The player must satisfy the “Eligibility to Represent a Nation” rule in those same regulations for the country whose national association and national Olympic committee nominate them.
- Age. Men must be 14 and women 15 by the opening day of the Olympic tennis event, checked against the passport used for accreditation.
- Team participation. The player must meet the minimum participation requirement in the Davis Cup or Billie Jean King Cup.
What counts as an appearance
The participation requirement is specific. A player must be part of the final nominated Davis Cup or Billie Jean King Cup team, and be present at the tie or event, on at least two occasions during the Olympic cycle. One of those two occasions must fall in 2027 or 2028. The cycle runs from Monday 5 August 2024 to Monday 12 June 2028, a closing date the ITF still marks as to be confirmed.
Two details decide most cases. First, being named is not enough: the player has to be on the final nominated team and physically present. Second, a nomination for a Davis Cup Finals, a Billie Jean King Cup Finals or any Regional Group event counts as a single occasion, however many ties the player takes part in that week. A player who travels to Shenzhen this week and plays three ties has one occasion, not three.
The timing rule means that appearances in 2025 and 2026 cannot complete the requirement on their own. A player with two nominations already in the bank still needs one more in 2027 or the first half of 2028 unless the exceptions below apply.
When the rule bends
A player who meets every other condition but not the participation requirement can still be declared eligible. The decision belongs to a panel named in the regulations for the Olympic tennis event, which may use its discretion when there are special circumstances. The document lists four, while making clear the list is not closed:
- Injury or illness, supported by medical records that clearly identify the period of absence from all competitive tennis.
- Newcomers, meaning players who only reached a ranking good enough for national team selection late in the cycle.
- Strength of nation, where a country has so many highly ranked players that the competition for places limits a player’s chances to be selected.
- Commitment and achievement, meaning a player’s past participation or results at the Olympics, the Davis Cup or the Billie Jean King Cup.
The injury ground is narrower than it looks. The records must show an absence from all competitive tennis, which on the wording of the rule does not fit a player who was well enough to play tour events but did not turn up for national team duty.
The passport half of the rule
Because Olympic eligibility borrows the team competitions’ nationality test, the 2026 Billie Jean King Cup Regulations show what a woman needs to represent a country. She must be a citizen who holds a valid passport of that nation and has held it for at least two years in the past five.
Where a nation does not issue its own passport, a qualifying passport confirming the player’s birthplace as that nation, held for the same period, can be used instead. A player who has lived in the country for five consecutive years can qualify without a passport if she has a genuine reason she cannot hold one and was born there, has a parent or grandparent born there, or has the right to remain permanently or humanitarian protection.
She must also not have represented another nation in a previous Billie Jean King Cup, other than the junior event, or at the Olympic tennis event. For that purpose, being nominated counts as representing: at the Finals from midday local time on the day before the first match, and at every other tie from the time of the draw.
There are two routes around those limits, and both take time. A national association can apply to the ITF’s Internal Adjudication Panel for a special exemption, but it must show that the player has a sufficient, genuine connection and commitment to life and tennis in the nation, and the complete application must reach the ITF at least three months before the tie.
Where a player may be eligible for more than one nation, the nominating nation must also file three months in advance; the ITF notifies the other nation, which has 15 days to comment. The ITF Executive then decides, with one appeal to the panel within 14 days and no appeal beyond that.
Good standing is more than a clean record
The good-standing test in the Billie Jean King Cup Regulations is broader than avoiding suspensions. Among its criteria, a player must make herself available for selection for the ITF’s official team championships and the Olympic tennis event, must not owe the ITF fines of 500 dollars or more after being given time to pay, and must accept her national association’s jurisdiction while playing ties for it.
Her national association makes the first decision on good standing, and only some parts of that decision can be reviewed by the Internal Adjudication Panel. The Davis Cup has its own set of regulations, which the LA28 document cites in the same way; this piece quotes the women’s text because it is the rulebook in use in Shenzhen this week.
What is still to come
The eligibility rules are not the last word. The ITF says it will publish separate regulations for the Olympic tennis event, covering conditions of entry and how to apply to the panel, and a qualification system setting out how the places are allocated. The eligibility rules themselves can still be supplemented or amended by the International Olympic Committee or the governing body before the tennis event begins. For the timing of the event itself, see our report on the LA 2028 tennis schedule, and for the structure of the women’s team competition, How Billie Jean King Cup Works.
