Wayne's Lisa Raymond makes the U.S. Olympic tennis team

WAYNE-BORN and -bred Lisa Raymond was named to the U.S. Olympic tennis team Tuesday, playing doubles. For the 38-year-old veteran, medaling in the Olympics is the one major tennis honor she has not achieved.

"To see it official and in writing and to actually see it all come to fruition … It had been such a goal of mine and ours to make this Olympic team and be a part of something so much bigger than the both of us," Raymond said, referencing her doubles partner, Liezel Huber, who will join her in London. "It won't really hit us until I get back on that plane to go to London."

She added that making the team now means more to her than when she initially made the team in 2004, for the Athens Olympics.

"I'm really excited for her," said Lisa's mom, Nancy Raymond. "All the hard work that she's done in the past year and a half has paid off and this is the reward for it."

Raymond and Huber are currently at Wimbledon, where the tennis portion of the Olympics will be held. Their first Wimbledon match is scheduled for Thursday. But they're not viewing their current play as a warmup for next month's games.

"It's definitely in the back of your mind a little bit, obviously. Especially being in London, where the Olympics is in every newspaper and on TV," Raymond said. "But there's still a massive Grand Slam going on right now. We have to focus on this now and then, hopefully, in a couple weeks, we'll focus on the Olympics."

Joining Raymond and Huber are Venus and Serena Williams, who took home gold in doubles both times they were paired together, in 2000 and 2008. Raymond noted it was a "bit odd" that the returning champs were on the same team.

"But at the end of the day, we're at the Olympics because we have the flag on our back and that's what we represent," Raymond said.

Because of the global nature of tennis, it's rare that partners get to compete with each other at the Olympics, said Raymond's coach, Eric Riley. He believes Raymond and Huber have a good chance of winning it all.

"Grass is a tremendous advantage for them. It's Wimbledon, on grass, in a place that she loves," he said. "They're going to have a great time."

Raymond and Huber, 35, have played together since April of last year. They took home the U.S. Open trophy for women's doubles after a slow start and are ranked No. 1, according to the Women's Tennis Association.

"It's a dream come true, especially to play with each other. We couldn't have asked for a better team," Huber said. "We're just excited to represent our country on such a big platform."

When Huber and Raymond started playing together, many didn't believe the partnership would work, if only because of their ages. So, is making the Olympic team, along with a No. 1 ranking, the ultimate we-told-you-so?

"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't. It's always fun to go out there and prove people wrong by your ability and hard work. We let our rackets do the talking," Raymond said.

Raymond has won six Grand Slam titles, four WTA Championships and has 78 overall titles.

This is the second Olympics for Raymond, who attended the Rosemont School and the Academy of Notre Dame. In 2004, Raymond partnered with Martina Navratilova, finishing in the quarterfinals. Raymond was an alternate in 2000 after a controversial selection process that put Serena Williams on the team, rather than Raymond, the top-ranked doubles player. Raymond took legal action but an arbiter ruled against her.

"I've always felt really bad that she hasn't won a medal," 2000 team captain Billie Jean King told the Daily News earlier this year. "She really got deprived to go."

Earlier this year, Raymond talked about her Olympic aspirations with the Daily News and she repeated those sentiments on the phone from London.