By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Novak Djokovic of Serbia can finally call himself an Olympic gold medalist following his thrilling 7-6, 7-6, grand finals victory over Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz in the Paris Olympics men’s singles event on August 4, 2024.
Entering the championship match against a familiar foe who got the better of him during their last Grand Slam head-to-head matchups, Djokovic had a sweet payback on Alcaraz after beating him on the surface where he just won the 2024 French Open golden trophy two months ago.
The Djokovic-Alcaraz gold medal clash lived up to the expectations of the tennis fans as it turned out to be one of the most exciting and nip-and-tuck showdowns in the history of Olympic tennis.
However, Djokovic showed that he was hungrier to win for Serbia and pulled off a consistent outing in all the grueling sets.
It was an equally matched game as both aces held all of their service possessions in the opening set, resulting in a deciding tiebreaker contest.
Djokovic struck first in the tiebreaker after breaking one of Alcaraz’s service possessions and followed it up with back-to-back baseline points to build a comfortable cushion.
Alcaraz only managed to score three points in the first set’s tiebreaker and was overwhelmed by Djokovic’s high-octane attack that forced him to stay behind the line and forget his net prowess.
It was the same scenario in the second set as Djokovic and Alcaraz didn’t surrender most of their service exchanges that set up the second championship tiebreaker phase.
The youngster from Spain showed more fight in the last tiebreaker and even leveled the score at 2-all but a blitzing offensive rally from Djokovic kept him scoreless in the next exchanges.
With the momentum shift that Djokovic’s rally delivered, his lead now mounted to 6-2 and reached the set point for the Paris gold medal.
As Alcaraz served during the game point, Djokovic returned a backhand volley that dropped in the Spanish’s center court.
Surprisingly, Alcaraz returned a slow-paced ball that Djokovic approached with aggressiveness, pummeling the game-winning point with a huge forehand bomb.
After the Olympic organizers officially announced his name as this edition’s gold medalist, Djokovic quickly became emotional and screamed in pain while weeping in his courtside chair.
