A Doubles Take
Diana Shnaider became the first former Wolfpack tennis player to win an Olympic medal, taking home the women’s doubles silver in Paris.
Former Wolfpack tennis star and 2023 ACC Freshman of the Year Diana Shnaider wasn’t expecting to compete in Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games. Players from her home country of Russia were ranked before her, so she tucked away any hopes. “That’s OK,” she told herself. “Maybe I will play next time.”
But then, she says, players in front of her decided they weren’t going to play, and she was asked to compete in her first Olympics, in women’s doubles. She says she and her partner Mirra Andreeva had never played together. “We didn’t even practice before,” she says. “We just went on the court and were like, ‘OK, let’s do this.’”
And do this they did. They defeated the second-seeded team from the Czech Republic, the reigning Olympic gold medalists from Tokyo in 2021, and Spain before losing to the third-seeded Italian team in the finals in three sets. “I feel like the first experience is always memorable,” says Shnaider, who’s the first former Wolfpack tennis player to win an Olympic medal, “but I also got a medal, so it’s twice as memorable and important to me.”
Shnaider, 20, was one of 32 athletes from either Belarus or Russia to compete in the 2024 Games as an Individual Neutral Athlete (or AIN). That was a distinction the International Olympic Committee allowed for athletes deemed eligible to compete in lieu of those countries’ athletes not competing under their home flag.
Celebration was short for Shnaider, who immediately flew to Toronto after the Olympics to compete in a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) event. She turned pro in 2023, but 2024 has been a banner year. She’s won four WTA titles, including the Hong Kong Tennis Open in November. That same month she reached a career high in rankings: 12th in the world. She credits that to a schedule with more matches with top players in high-level tournaments.
Of her opportunities and success in 2024, she says, “It’s the sort of thing that comes up at the right time.”
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