At 37 years old, Novak Djokovic still has goals to achieve. One of them is partially fulfilled, after the Serbian defeated Lorenzo Musetti in the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament. Sixteen years after his first attempt, Djokovic will compete for the gold medal in the final this Sunday against Carlos Alcaraz, with whom he lost the last two important finals, at Roland-Garros and Wimbledon.
“I have waited for this for almost 20 years. I have played four Olympic Games; this is my fifth and I have never made it past the semi-finals. I managed to overcome that major obstacle. I must be honest and say that I was thinking about all the semi-finals I lost,” Djokovic (2nd in the rankings) said after defeating Musetti (16th) 6-4, 6-2. The Serbian is the fifth player to reach the finals of all four Grand Slams and the Olympic final, joining Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Murray.
Earlier, Carlos Alcaraz was more emphatic in qualifying for the final, defeating Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime with a double 6-1, becoming the third Spanish tennis player to reach an Olympic final, repeating the achievements of Jordi Arrese (1992), Sergi Bruguera (1996), and Rafael Nadal (2008) – the only one to win gold.
“It’s going to be a very special moment for me, in my life, in my career, so I’m going to try to enjoy the moment because it’s going to be very difficult. It will be hard, but it will be special. I will try to focus on myself and not listen to everything, all the fans, all the people saying ‘I’m going to win.’ I just want to give 100% of my best tennis and I hope to achieve my goal of winning gold,” said the 21-year-old tennis player. The youngest Olympic finalist is only the American Robert LeRoy, who was a finalist at the St. Louis Games in 1904 at the age of 19.
Later, Auger-Aliassime ended the day with a bronze medal in mixed doubles, alongside compatriot Gabriela Dabrowski. The gold medal in this category went to the Czechs Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac, who won the final against the Chinese duo Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen, by 6-2, 5-7, and 10/8.
Recovered from the disappointment of the previous day, Iga Swiatek became the first Polish tennis player to win an Olympic medal – 36 years after her father, rower Tomasz Swiatek, represented Poland at the Seoul Games. The world number one was clearly superior to Slovak Anna Karolina Schmiedlova (67th in the rankings), defeating her with scores of 6-2, 6-1 in 55 minutes, winning the bronze.
“A real dream is probably gold, but I am very happy to have recovered after yesterday’s match because it was not easy to come today with the joy of playing. In tennis, we rarely have a situation where we go onto the court after a loss. I am happy to have managed to finish with a positive result, and any medal is a great achievement. I am very happy to have worked hard throughout my career to win a medal and to win a match like that because it’s something incredible for me, and I never expected that,” Swiatek said.
The gold medal will be awarded this Saturday and will be contested between Chinese player Zheng Qinwen (7th) and Croatian Donna Vekic (21st).