Olympic Gold and History Made!

The Olympic final of men’s singles tennis took place on August 4th. The finalists were Novak Djokovic from Serbia and Carlos Alcaraz from Spain, marking their first match on clay since last year's Roland Garros semi-final. This rivalry is currently the one everyone is looking for and the two have not failed to put on a show once again, this time at the Olympics.

The match did not start smoothly for either of the players and the games were longer than average. The first set took about 90 minutes and Djokovic was the one ending the tie-break with a victory. Djokovic was the first to see a breakpoint in the set but failed to break the serve of Alcaraz in the 4th game, missing three break points. Right after, in the 5th game, Alcaraz had the same chance but could not finish the game either again missing three break points. 

The most critical game of the set may have been the ninth game where the score was 4-4 and Alcaraz could not break Djokovic’s set despite having five break points. The tie-break ended with the score 7-3 which was probably kind of devastating for Alcaraz after a 90-minute long set. The service quality was pretty decisive in the set as Djokovic had a better variation and width of serves than Alcaraz and Alcaraz had a low percentage in his first serves. In the second set tension grew even higher as there were no breaks and again a tie-break was played. In the end, the overall score was 7-6(3), 7-6(2). Even though he tried his best, Alcaraz could not add the Olympic Gold Medal to his achievements for now and settled for the Silver Medal. 

Novak Djokovic, who went the entire tournament without dropping a set, is only the fifth player—male or female—to accomplish the career Golden Slam. He also became the oldest men's singles gold medallist at 37.