A fired-up Novak Djokovic on Friday reached his first Olympic final, where he will face Carlos Alcaraz in a dream showdown for gold, describing his achievement as “a big deal”.
Top seed Djokovic, still seeking an elusive Olympic title to sit along his 24 Grand Slams, defeated Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti 6-4, 6-2 in a tense semi-final.
Alcaraz earlier became the youngest men’s finalist since tennis returned to the Games in 1988 when he swept aside Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-1.
Sunday’s title match at Roland Garros will be the pair’s seventh meeting and follows on the heels of Alcaraz’s recent victory against Djokovic in the Wimbledon final.
“It’s a huge relief,” said Djokovic, whose only success at the Olympics was a bronze medal at Beijing in 2008.
“Three out of four Olympic Games, I played semis, won bronze from the first one in Beijing.
“So just to secure a higher medal for the first time for my country, whatever happens on Sunday, is a huge honour. I’m going to go for gold. There’s no doubt about it — this is a big deal.”
The 37-year-old Djokovic, who showed no sign of the right knee injury he aggravated in Thursday’s quarter-final win over Stefanos Tsitsipas, said Alcaraz would be the favourite.
The 21-year-old Spaniard captured the French Open title on the same Court Philippe Chatrier in June.
Serbia’s Djokovic said he has “nothing to lose”.
“He beat me at Wimbledon. But these are different circumstances and I feel I am a better player than at Wimbledon.
“I will come out and play my best tennis.”
Djokovic’s fierce desire to reach the final boiled over in the second set against Musetti when he was twice warned for taking too long to serve.
He was also warned for swearing at the umpire.
“I was thinking about all the semi-finals that I lost in the Olympic Games before today’s match and that’s why I was very tense on the court,” admitted Djokovic.
French Open and Wimbledon champion Alcaraz hammered Canada’s Auger-Aliassime in just 75 minutes.
‘Objective is gold’
“It has been an objective since the start of the year to try and win the gold medal and now we have one match left to try and get it done,” said Alcaraz.
The Spanish star broke the 19th-ranked Auger-Aliassime three times in the first set, racing away with six consecutive games.
He broke twice in the second set on his way to claiming a fourth successive win over the Canadian.
“The final is very important for me and the Spanish people but I try not to think about how important it is and will focus on the match,” said Alcaraz.
He is the fourth Spanish man to reach the Olympic men’s final after Jordi Arrese at Barcelona in 1992, Sergi Bruguera in Atlanta four years later and Rafael Nadal, who won gold at Beijing in 2008.
‘Broke my heart’
A day after her 25-match Roland Garros win streak was ended by Zheng Qinwen, world number one Iga Swiatek returned to court to claim the bronze medal for women’s singles.
The 23-year-old easily defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-2, 6-1.
“Yesterday was one of the toughest losses I probably ever had in my career,” said Swiatek.
“I cried for about six hours. It was like someone broke my heart.”
The first gold medal of the Olympics tennis event came in mixed doubles when the Czech pair of Katerina Siniakova and boyfriend Tomas Machac beat China’s Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen 6-2, 5-7, 10-8.
In the bronze medal play-off, Auger-Aliassime teamed up with Gabriela Dabrowski to defeat Demi Schuurs and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands.
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